


Seasons of Change

by Angelina_Aintithenniel



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Astrid doesn't know what to do, Captivity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hiccup is lost, Hurt/Comfort, Parent Stoick the Vast, Stoick is just trying to get his boy back, Toothless is angry, and poor Gobber just wants to get everything back to normal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-05-03 19:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 36,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14576238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelina_Aintithenniel/pseuds/Angelina_Aintithenniel
Summary: Injured and unable to fly, Toothless is forced to watch his rider dragged into captivity by Viking raiders. With Hiccup gone, Stoick begins to realize how far he will go to get his son back. Poor Hiccup just wants to stay alive and make it back to his home.What follows is a months long journey of pain, both physical and emotional, as Hiccup and his family try to find each other once again. Hiccup!whump Fatherly!Stoic





	1. The Beginning of the Adventure

Grey skies, sheeting rain, and waterlogged streets greeted Hiccup as he and Toothless bounded back from their morning ride. Autumn had come to Berk. The mild and occasionally sunny days of summer had given way to the colder and wetter days of fall. Soon, the equinox would be upon them, and the sun would leave again.

The harvest was due in the next two weeks, and Berk was bustling with activity. Vikings all around the small island were setting out to their day's work. Gliding over the village, Hiccup could already see the fires of the shops blazing.

"Watch out!" Toothless had barely landed before the warning came. A woven bag landed heavily next to Hiccup, a cascade of meal puffing into a cloud that clung to Hiccup's new sheepskin vest.

Thorlot the baker appeared next to the bag a moment later, dusting Hiccup off with a rough hand and an amused chuckle. Satisfied with her job, she gave Hiccup a gapped-tooth grin, "Well, if it ain't the little Chief. A'ways in my flour, ain't ye?"

Hiccup blushed at the nickname and gentle reproach, "Sorry, Thorlot."

Thorlot snorted and began to drag the bag of meal the rest of the way to the outdoor oven shielded by a rock hood. "Get on wi' ye, then."

Hiccup gave her a lopsided grin and disappeared up the hill from the bakery. Toothless bounded away after a minute, harassing another Viking who was coming from the smokehouse with a basket of herrings. The house of the Chief was only slightly larger than some of the other dwellings in Berk, but it was more ornately carved and coloured. Hiccup always liked to trace the outline of the new dragon figure carved above the front door as he climbed up the stairs to his house.

The front door burst open as Hiccup reached for the latch. Stoick the Vast lived up to his epithet in many ways and his size was certainly no exception. Before his father even realized he was there, Hiccup had bounced off his belted belly.

"Ach!" Hiccup's rear end hit the stone steps. Before the rest of him could follow tumbling down the stairs, a vice-like grip latched onto his upper arm.

"How many time have I told ye not to sneak?" sighed Stoick as he lifted his son to his feet and threw a hand around his shoulders. "One of these days, Thor knows what will happen."

Hiccup ducked out of his father's grasp. While their relationship had come leaps and bounds from the dragon wars nearly two years prior, things were still awkward. "Thanks, Dad."

The bigger Viking snorted, "And keep out of trouble."

Hiccup watched him leave before turning back to the house. He had so much left to do before tomorrow. After months of pleading and preparing, Hiccup was finally setting out to explore past the Barbaric Archipelago.

Gobber had set some saddlebags outside their door the night before. Hiccup dragged the two heavy objects over his shoulder and into his personal shop. He had already set out his overnight and first aid kits, as well as navigation and mapping tools. Now, all he had to do was to pack food and mead. Two waterskins hung by a cord on the wall. The skins had come from last season's slaughter and were still in good condition. He'd fill them with mead later that night.

The day passed agonizingly slow as the excitement of tomorrow's adventure filled Hiccup. He busied himself with double-checking the instructions he had set up at the dragon school. Eventually a exasperated Astrid threw him out with shout, "Your excitement is messing with the dragons!"

Banned from his school, Hiccup wandered around Berk, helping with odds and ends. Construction on a new dragon barn was underway; hopefully it would be finished before the winter solstice and in time for the dragons to hibernate. With little else to distract his wandering mind, Hiccup ducked into the construction zone to find Spitelout directing the raising of a wall section.

The burly Viking caught the small boy out of the corner of his eye as the men levered the wall into position, "Hiccup! Stop skulking about and go fetch some extra tools from Gobber!"

Hiccup nodded enthusiastically and ducked back out to Spitelout's shouting, "and don't touch anything!"

After a disastrous attempt to haul rough materials a few moons before, he had been banned from directly working with construction. Of course, he'd used Toothless to help lift the larger timbers into place, and had worked with the builders to design the barn, but practical tasks had been shifted to hands better suited for the task than his.

Finally, dusk was nearing. Hiccup practically skipped to the smokehouse to pick up the basket of smoked and pickled fish he would need for the trip. A small survival supply had been set aside for Toothless, but the dragon would need to fish to get his fill. Hiccup spent an hour packing his bags, throwing in a few items he likely wouldn't need but still might be good to have along. The last thing he added was a small map crammed onto a yak-skin parchment.

Hiccup looked at the map he had copied. Bjorn the trader had been so shocked to find another Viking who liked maps that he had let Hiccup copy this particular map in exchange for a paltry sum of leather barely enough large for one bracer. It had shown the islands in which Bjorn spent his winters. The trader had even shown Hiccup a few tips to notate his maps and illustrate land-forms.

After two nights of work, a fairly good copy of the map had been reproduced. Hiccup had tucked away the new knowledge for a time when he would be free to explore. The dragon rider spent moons trying to convince his father to let him make the journey. Hiccup had never embarked on a long distance journey before, and he had finally found a distant land he could feasibly travel to.

The summer solstice had come and gone before Stoick relented. The Viking knew that his son would go with or without his permission, so at least by agreeing, he could be sure that Hiccup would at the minimum listen to his safety concerns. Several fortnights were spent planning the journey before Hiccup finally obtained permission to set out several days short of the Fall equinox. The equinox was far enough from the onset of winter to ensure that Hiccup would return before the ice set in, and it also got the clumsy Viking out of the village for the duration of the harvest. As much as Hiccup had helped the infrastructure and people of the island, he was still a clumsy boy who was alarmingly prone to disaster.

"Tomorrow's the day," Hiccup breathed giddily to himself. He was sitting cross-legged in front of the fire in his room, his dragon curled up at his side. Toothless snuffled in agreement and nudged his head underneath his rider's hand. Hiccup smiled and scratched behind the dragon's ears.

The heavy front door creaked as it opened. The sound of footsteps echoed through their dwelling as Stoick tromped through the main room, "We missed ye at the hall. I brought ye stew."

A bowl of stew plunked down on the floor next to Hiccup. Toothless eyed it hungrily as he smelled the salmon.

"Thanks, Dad. I'm a little too excited to eat right now," grumbled Hiccup as he eyed the substance with distaste.

"Nonsense, my boy. Ye've got a journey ahead of ye, can't start that on an empty stomach, now can ya?" The hopeful look on his father's face was too much for Hiccup. He quickly slurped up a few spoonfuls, swallowing forcefully in an attempt to keep the stew down.

Stoick smiled triumphantly, "I'll leave ye to sleep then, and be sure to finish yer stew."

As soon as his father's steps echoed down the stairs, Hiccup slid the bowl to Toothless, and the dragon greedily finished the fish mush before he had even managed an, "Have at it, bud."

Hiccup checked his gear and provisions one last time before turning in for the night. His pallet of wool and feathers seemed unusually lumpy that night. The boy tossed and turned for hours after his dragon and father had fallen asleep. Anticipation boiled just below his skin. Tomorrow would be a big day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Barbaric Archipelago technically is a fictional chain of islands based off of the original author's travels in the Scottish Hebrides. Given this and the general feel of both Scottish and Norse heritage on Berk, I have decided to place the Barbaric Archipelago north of Scotland, but still close to the mainland. This would be northeast of the Hebrides, considerably south of the Faeroe Islands, and west of both the Orkney and Shetland archipelagoes. This is still close enough to have a feasible Norse influence (considering the Vikings pretty much ran rampant in northern Scotland for a few hundred years), while also maintaining the Scottish heritage apparent in the movies and giving a realistic place for an island chain with the type of climate described.
> 
> Given the technology of the films and the society, dates for settlements kinda went out the window. I'll probably set this in the 1100s, but there won't really be a definitive time period. It's definitely before the advent of Christianity in Scandinavian Scotland which according to the Orkneyinga Saga was around 995, so I will be playing fast and loose with dates, just like the books and movies. Expect historic Vikings from a timespan of several hundred years making cameos along with technology, customs, and beliefs spanning several hundred years. Basically this story is taking elements from Viking culture in the northern Scottish islands from the time the Vikings took over the Picts and Scots to the time the islands were finally absorbed under the Scottish crown and the earldom of Orkney dissolved.
> 
> For some part, I will most definitely know what I am talking about considering that I studied the Scottish heritage of the Orkney and Shetland islands in Oxford. For a good portion of it though, I will likely be relying on internet research (my knowledge of Scottish Vikings mainly comes from strict history courses and medieval literature, i.e. the Magnus Sagas, the Prose Edda,and the Orkneyinga Saga. This knowledge is almost entirely socio-political and is still very limited). If any of you out there spot weaknesses and/or inaccuracies in my history/portrayal of Viking life, let me know and I will see if it's something I can fix. After all, this is just a fanfiction, not a full-blown historical drama. Expect references to made up villages as well as historical sites. There shouldn't be a significant presence of OCs outside of the general background characters used to flesh out the story more (there will be no significant romantic OCs or anything of the like, though I likely will have a self-insert cameo for all of five seconds).
> 
> Please note that I am not a linguist and my dialect writing skills really aren't very good. I will try to use both stereotypical Scottish and Norse accents and dialects to better simulate both the history and movie setting (try being the operative word here).
> 
> So this was a story I started 3 years ago on FF.net and haven't updated in a while, but I have most of the ending written and thought I would give another crack at it. If you want to read the rest of it over there, I've posted it under the same Author and Title. However, I am posting an edited, corrected, and slightly expanded version here in the lead up to new chapters as I fix a lot of the mistakes from my earlier writing.


	2. Exploring New Seas

Dawn had yet to break over the horizon when Toothless soared across the sky. As a shaded figure against the black night, he could barely be seen by Stoick's watchful eyes.

Hiccup had wanted to leave early enough to reach the sea-stacks by the time first light broke. All he had to do from there was to keep the polestar on his left, and then he would be set to find the islands that Bjorn the trader had spoken of. By ship, the journey from the islands to Berk took well over two-three days one way if the winds were good. Hiccup was hoping to cut that in half by flying.

The sea-stacks passed below the dragon and rider. Delingr's morning light began to spill over the sky as the first hints of the sun could be seen. With an excited bark, Toothless spit out a plasma bolt, allowing the warm updraft to push him and his rider into the first rays of daylight.

"Excited there, Toothless?" asked Hiccup.

The dragon grinned and chortled deeply. Hiccup laughed along with him. The morning swam by in a mix of fog, sea, and the vague coastlines of familiar islands. Just past midday, they reached the eastern-most island in the Barbaric archipelago, a small hunk of rock covered in tree-lined hills. Hiccup directed Toothless into a steep dive, and whooped loudly as they hurtled towards the ground. Toothless' wings extended and filled with air just in time to slow them down into a bounding landing. Skidding to a final halt, Hiccup sprang from his saddle with a face-splitting grin.

"Ready for lunch?" he asked.

Toothless barked, teeth lighting up his lopsided smile. His rider unstrapped and lifted off the laden saddlebags fastened across his flanks. Free of his burden, the dragon bounded across the rocky shore while he waited for Hiccup to finish stowing the bags.

As soon as the boy was done, Toothless was nosing him back into his saddle, "Okay, greedy guts, let's get you some fish."

The two spent nearly twenty minutes diving in and out of the ocean in search of food. Full of cod, Toothless flew contentedly back to shore. He helped to dry off Hiccup's soaking clothes before curling up on a sun-warmed rock for his afternoon nap. After his lunch of lutefisk, Hiccup curled up in a comfy patch of moss and grass for his own nap.

The afternoon passed quietly. Toothless woke around sunset and attempted to nudge his rider awake. When the boy didn't move, Toothless licked his face. Startling awake with a shout, Hiccup beat off the wet tongue and flung the saliva back in the dragon's face. "Toothless! How many times do I have to tell that doesn't wash out?!"

Toothless snorted sardonically before jerking his head towards the setting sun. Hiccup sighed and stretched out his stiff back. "Ready for the next leg, bud?"

The next leg of the flight was the longest. Here, Hiccup crossed the open ocean. As long as he flew in between the pole star and the rising moon, he should make landfall on the islands that Bjorn had told him about by morning. Hiccup nearly salivated at the new possibilities that could be opened to Berk if it only took a little over a day's flight to reach the trading islands.

The first half of the flight was uneventful. The skies above remained relatively clear, and the seas below calm. There was a light, but deceptively cold breeze that blew the Arctic air in from the north.

Clouds began to descend on the starry sky during the second half of the flight. The smell of rain clung heavily to Hiccup's nostrils. Rolling thunder in the distance promised a storm. Sure enough, rain began to fall in driving sheets just minutes later. Frozen pellets of water mixed with the wind and rain to strip Hiccup's face raw and red.

"The gods hate me," muttered Hiccup. Over the open sea, there was nothing Hiccup could do but hold steady on his course and hope they could find land and shelter. "Come on, Toothless, we can do this."

Together, dragon and rider battled the storm for nearly an hour before the distant outline of a coast could be seen, appearing darker against the horizon than the storm clouds. "Land!" Hiccup cried.

Fighting against the unforgiving wind, the two pushed to gain the shore. The island was close enough to make out the outlines of fir trees when disaster struck. Lightning that had been flitting dangerously from cloud-to-cloud leaped from the heavens with a blinding flash and an accompanying crack that sent shudders down Hiccup's spine. The bolt struck Toothless' tail fin, melting the leather, and running through the wire attached to Hiccup's control pedal. Toothless tried his best to absorb the electricity, knowing his rider couldn't handle the energy quite like the dragon could.

The charge heated Hiccup's metal leg and seared the stump to which it was strapped. He and Toothless both cried out in agony. Almost as soon as it had struck, the circuit was completed, and the lightning left Toothless' body. The mingled smell of charred flesh and heated dragon scales lingered in the lightning's wake. Toothless and Hiccup seemed to hang in the air for a minute, forward momentum carrying them a few feet further, before they began to fall.

Dragon and rider plummeted to earth. The wind pushed them into a haphazard spiral, as Toothless' wings stretched out as far as they could go in an attempt to slow the pair down. Hiccup frantically tried to regain control of their flight before a glimpse back revealed that Toothless' tailfin had warped and melted together. Left with no idea what to do, he flattened himself out on the back of the dragon, and clung for dear life to his friend's neck.

Dragon and rider went down together, taking out a tree before skidding across the earth. Dirt sprayed in a shower around them as their crash come to a violent stop. The storm continued to rage above, fueled by Thor's wrath. The wind and rain snapped the treetops together, as thunder echoed through the hills of the island. The odd lightning strike illuminated a still, black bundle, wreathed in the wreckage of old heather and bracken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure how fast dragons are. My base assumption is that they can travel faster than the classic longboats. I've decided loosely model my calculations off of the speed of birds of prey. Toothless draws inspiration from the Peregrine Falcon, though I did tone down the speed. In a high-speed dive a Night Fury can exceed 150 mph, but a general flight speed would be around 30 mph (the speed of a galloping horse). For a long distance flight, an efficient speed would be around 20 mph (like jogging, not too fast that the pace can't be kept up, but not too slow to lose momentum). Basically I tried to make dragons useful without making them too overpowered.
> 
> Lutefisk is a traditional Scandinavian meal of fish basically pickled in lye. It was first mentioned in literature in the mid-16th century, but the manuscript talks about a long history of lutefisk, so it could be decades to centuries older than that. I don't really know, but it's a distinctive holiday dish today in Scandinavia and would probably keep well for a long journey.
> 
> Also, Berk doesn't seem like the Viking civilization that would need to travel a lot, especially since their knowledge of their own archipelago is limited. The first map we see is Stoick's table map (I still find the inclusion of maps hilarious given the fiasco over the Vinland Map) that is shown during the vikings planning session to find the dragon homeland. This map really only shows a few larger islands and seems to be mainly concerned with locating the dragon threat, so I'm left wondering if these vikings had seafaring and/or geographic knowledge outside their main conflict with the dragons. This is further supported by Hiccup and his mother pretty much providing all of the contributions to the discovery of their archipelago.
> 
> One last note before I leave you: the description of the storm was inspired by the Gothic novels and Robert Walpole's influence. Cue ominous lightning!


	3. Dragon-wrecked

The storm was beginning to die down when Hiccup struggled out of Toothless' death grip around his upper body. In the split second before they had hit the ground, Toothless had wrestled Hiccup off his back and shielded him with his own body. Wrapped tightly inside the cocoon of the dragon's wings, the boy had survived the impact relatively unharmed.

Once Hiccup crawled out, Toothless groaned and rolled over onto his back. He snorted against the falling rain as it turned his earthy bed into mud.

It was still dark out, but Hiccup had caught a glimpse of a stone building when a lightning strike lit up the stormy sky. "We need to get to shelter. Do you think you can make it?"

Toothless groaned again and rolled over with a pained whine. The two stumbled along the dark terrain to the stone hut. Rocks and pitted earth snarled them and Hiccup fell more than once, gasping in pain as the uneven ground jarred his burnt leg.

"Hello?" Hiccup called as the pair approached the stone hut. "Is anyone there? We need help!"

The angry wind and creaking trees filled the silence as Hiccup waited for an answer. The boy called a few more times, before shrugging and continuing on.

The hut was larger than it had first appeared from a distance. It was almost a perfect circle covered in a tightly bound thatch roof. Carefully, Hiccup felt around the edge of the stone walls worn smooth by the weather, until he found an opening. A curtain of sheepskin hung over the entrance in place of a proper door. Hiccup pushed aside the curtain and dragged himself into the small hut. It took a little maneuvering for Toothless to wiggle inside. He only managed it with help from Hiccup.

"Well, this is cozy," Hiccup mumbled as he stumbled about the dark interior. No sooner had he said this then he ran into a wall. His already sore rear end connected with the dirt floor. Hiccup lay on the ground for a moment as he tried to get his bearings and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. The last spike of adrenalin from colliding with the wall began to fade, and the soreness in Hiccup's body set in with a dull throb. Trying to get up put pressure on his burnt limb; nausea rolled in his stomach and threatened to upset his lunch. Hiccup swayed for a moment before Toothless steadied him with a whine that sounded both worried and pained.

"Thanks, Toothless. What do you say we get some light in here?" asked Hiccup as he felt along the dragon's flank to the saddlebags. He rummaged through the left one. As his luck would have it, his overnight kit was at the bottom of the bag.

Inside his bundled blanket, Hiccup pulled out his flint and tinder. Stacking it carefully on the floor, he struggled with creating a spark before the small pile finally caught fire. The flickering kindling lit the hut and Hiccup quickly saw that the space had, at one time, been divided into three rooms. Now, only one of the inner walls was intact. The other was only a small pile of stones left stacked against the exterior wall. On the remaining wall, there was a torch made of sheepskin soaked in oil and bound tightly around a large stick. A cloth had been put over the torch to protect it. Hiccup carefully lit the torch, and the light in the hut doubled.

The new light illuminated the far side of the hut where dried food goods and basic materials had been stacked. Limping over to the opening in the one intact inner wall, Hiccup found an empty room. On his way back into the main room, Hiccup spied a small hatch in the roof above a pit lined with stones. By now, the rain had lessened enough that the boy was more than happy to open the hatch and let the thick, foul-smelling smoke from the torch escape.

Hiccup's stump throbbed terribly as he hobbled around the hut. Satisfied that every inch of his temporary home had been explored, Hiccup sank gratefully against Toothless' middle, supporting himself on the rising and falling side of his dragon. He rummaged through the saddle bags once more to find his first aid kit.

A burn salve that Berk's healer had perfected during the years of war against the dragons sat inside an unassuming wooden box. He carefully unstrapped his metal leg and slowly pulled it away. The cloth that was bound around his stump for padding was obviously a lost cause, blackened in the middle where it had sat against his metal leg. Once the leg was off and the padding cloth gingerly unwound, Hiccup was thankful to see that the burn wasn't as serious as he feared. The skin on the bottom and side of his stump was red, and there was some blistering, but nothing had been blackened or cracked. He had suffered worse burns from training dragons. Carefully, Hiccup smeared the salve over his stump, biting back a shout at the brief spike of pain.

Toothless cooed worriedly as Hiccup panted from the exertion of wrapping his injured limb in bandages. The two sat in silence for a while as the salve began to work its wonders. The wind outside died down and the rain finally let up before Hiccup started moving again. He used Toothless' side to lever himself up and hop over to unstrap and remove the saddlebags from the dragon's rump. Unbuckling the bags was easy enough, but lifting them off would be too much for Hiccup in his current state. Instead, he settled for pushing it over to one side. As the bags slid to the ground, Toothless howled in pain.

"What's wrong, bud? What did I do?" Hiccup frantically asked as he searched the dragon's flank for injuries.

Toothless' tail flopped slightly when the dragon tried to curl it into himself. A high pitched wail echoed through the stone hut. Carefully, Hiccup felt along the dragon's tail until he came to a point where the scales were damaged. Toothless' tail wasn't bent and Hiccup couldn't feel a break. The pain his dragon was suddenly voicing led Hiccup to believe either a muscle had been damaged or a bone had fractured.

"I don't know what's happened to your tail, Toothless. Let me see if I can find anything to help." Hiccup strapped his leg back on, ignoring the pain. With the torch clutched firmly in a remarkably steady hand, Hiccup hobbled outside. The night was still dark, but the light illuminated enough to keep him from falling.

Hiccup returned with a long, straight stick that he had broken in two. With the sticks and leftover bandages, the boy splinted Toothless' tail. After everything was tied up as best he could Hiccup immobilized the tail.

"I guess we're stuck here until you start feeling better, huh?" asked Hiccup as he scratched Toothless behind his ear. The dragon huffed softly in annoyance.

Hiccup rolled out his bed and snuggled in. When it was light enough, he would explore their new surroundings. For now, the young Viking was exhausted and in pain. Sleep was the best thing for him.

Beside him Toothless slept fitfully. Weren't they a pair? Hiccup mused to himself, two cripples stranded gods knew where, several days out from Berk. Maybe rescue would come before Toothless' tail healed? That would be nice. Hiccup did not want to get stuck in this hut for winter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hut used in this chapter is based off of the Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae which is a Pictish village located in the Bay of Skaill on Orkney. While the settlement pre-dates this story by 2000-3000 years, the mound that covered the ruins may have been known in the Viking Age. It would not be in nearly as good a condition as I've described it here (considered it remained buried for who knows how long and was only discovered by locals after a catastrophic storm in 1850), but I've always enjoyed this settlement and have read through some of the archaeological notes from the dig so I figured I could get away with incorporating it into a fictional world.


	4. The Morning After

Dawn came and went and midday approached rapidly before Hiccup opened bleary eyes. For a few moments he lay on his back and stared at the roof, trying to figure out why it was bothering him. There was a dull ache in his leg and his body felt sore. Hiccup wondered if he had pushed himself too hard in dragon training again.

He reached up to rub his eyes when he finally realized why the roof was bothering him. Tightly bound thatch could be seen in the few streams of light coming in from the curtained doorway. The roof of Hiccup's room was wood, not thatch. Suddenly the events of the previous day unfolded in his cloudy mind.  
"Toothless!" Hiccup sat up with a shout.

The dragon was curled up next to him, sleeping soundly. His tail was stretched out awkwardly behind him. Hearing his rider's call, Toothless startled awake, blinking owlishly at the boy beside him.

Hiccup reached out and rested his hand on the dragon's neck. Toothless cooed softly in reassurance. After a few moments Hiccup pushed himself onto his feet, realizing that he had fallen asleep with his leg on last night. Rubbing ruefully at the sore stump, he shuffled over to saddlebags and extracted some smoked herring and lutefisk for breakfast. As he was digging through the bags, his cut his hand on the tailfin he had packed on a whim. He sucked on the injured finger as he pulled the tailfin and breakfast out.

The two ate breakfast in relative silence, the sounds of chewing and slurping filling the stone hut. When the food was finished Hiccup sat crossed leg in front of Toothless. "Is your tail worse than last night?"

Toothless laid his ears back and whined. The appendage was still stretched awkwardly behind the dragon, the splint weighing it down and keeping it relatively immobile.

"I was afraid of that," sighed Hiccup. "We won't be able to fly back until you're tail has healed. And there's no way I could sail back to Berk. With any luck, dad will come looking for us. But until then, I guess we're stuck here."

Toothless nodded solemnly, his eyes narrowed in what Hiccup assumed was determination. He laughed at the dragon.

"Well it's a good thing I brought this then," Hiccup held up the automatic tailfin that Toothless could control. The dragon laid his ears back and growled at the contraption. Hadn't he made his loyalty to his rider clear when he destroyed the last one?

"Toothless," Hiccup exasperatedly sighed, absent-mindedly scratching beneath the dragon's chin to soothe him. "I made another one for emergencies, bud. And it's a good thing to. We're alone out here and I want you to be able to fly without me in case something happens. Okay?"

Toothless gave a small growl before melting into his friend's touch. He had made his displeasure known, but he trusted the boy. Hiccup fixed the tailfin to his dragon, being careful of his injured tail. The process was long and exhausting for both Viking and dragon. When the tailfin was finally secure, both were panting. They lay in a heap on the floor for a few minutes before Hiccup stretched and pushed himself up onto sore legs.

With notebook in hand, the boy stumbled out into the early afternoon light. The sun was high in the sky over the island. The stone hut he and Toothless had made their home for the night was one of three still standing. Two more dwellings lay in crumbled piles of stone that had obviously been rummaged through over the years to patch the other three buildings. The other two huts still standing were much the same as Hiccup's. Inside, he found some more dry goods.

The site of the huts was on a hill above the rocky beach. A stone lined path led down to the beach where a ramshackle dock barely managed to keep from being swept out to sea with the receding tide.

Another path led out to the woods behind the huts on which Hiccup set off to explore the area. Several dozen strides up the path was a small structure. Inside was a wooden bench set over a hole. "At least there's a latrine," Hiccup mused to himself.

The wood was filled with tall fir trees and sparse underbrush. A few rams wandered over the rocky countryside. Hiccup marveled at the abandoned land as he explored. There were so many obvious signs of the life that must have gone on here. Where were the people who lived here? Who kept up the buildings Hiccup was exploring? Why had they gone?

The path wound around to the other side of the island before fading away into a sheer cliff over the sea. Waves crashed against the rocks below. "So it is an island, then?" Hiccup mused. He sat on a moss covered rock above the cliff and studied the map that he kept tucked into his tunic. Of the islands scattered about the map, Hiccup couldn't identify the one he was one. Bjorn had said all of smaller, scattered islands were inhabited. If he had made it to the trader's land, he should be able to see the rest of the archipelago on the horizon. To all sides, the only thing Hiccup could see was open water. With a sigh, Hiccup folded his map and put it away. There was nothing left to be done today except get an inventory on the dry goods stored in the huts. Refusing to be defeated by the uncertainty of his situation, Hiccup returned to his hut with a metaphorical spring in his step (there was no way he was going to bounce on his burnt stump).

Toothless greeted him on his way back with a happy bark. No sooner had Hiccup pushed the curtain back and stooped to enter the hut than Toothless had padded forward to nuzzle him. The dragon had missed Hiccup.

"Hey, Toothless," Hiccup smiled, "I found another hut with a larger entrance and inner room for you. We can move you there tonight."

Appeased for the moment, Toothless settled back to nap. His rider would take care of him later.

Hiccup began prying open the barrels and boxes stacked in the back of his hut. In his exuberance to open one particularly difficult barrel, Hiccup overbalanced crashed to his rear. Toothless twitched an ear at the noise but didn't wake.

"That's right, you useless dragon, sleep while I do all the hard work," muttered Hiccup beneath his breath.

Toothless cracked one eye open and hummed in reply. His ears twitched again for a moment before he settled back into sleep.

After nearly an hour of work Hiccup has the contents of the barrel neatly piled around him and a running inventory of everything he now had. There was enough smoked cod to last Hiccup for months. There were basic necessities such as rope, fishing gear, metal pots, and tools. Surprisingly, Hiccup found a tunic and trousers made out of some type of mottled grey skin that was soft to the touch and very smooth when he wrapped it around himself. The tunic and trousers were much bigger and heavier than was practical for Hiccup, he concluded that it was probably made for a larger Viking. They would need some modification if he was going to wear them.

Behind the barrels he found some carved runes. They were familiar to Hiccup and he recognized several figures from the runes back on Berk, but he couldn't puzzle out what they said. Pictures of men riding fantastical four-legged creatures with flowing hair and tails decorated the space beside the runes.

When evening came, Hiccup helped Toothless move into the bigger hut before the boy returned to his own. He curled up on his bedroll with his woolen cloak as a blanket and the large tunic as a pillow. After re-wrapping his stump, he fell into a comfortable sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More about the tunic and trousers set along with the fantastical four-legged creatures will be discovered in later chapters. I'm really not very good at trying to describe things like I don't know what they are. Wow, send help please.


	5. Learning to Live

The new morning dawned bright through the hatch Hiccup had left open the night before. He stretched sore muscles and rubbed at his still aching stump before resigning himself to another day in his personal island. With a sigh, the boy pulled himself up and staggered out of his hut and into the one that now contained his dragon.

"Come on, lazy bones," Hiccup prodded Toothless on his side, "It's time to face another day."

The dragon snorted and curled in tighter, a wing stretching out to hide his head. Hiccup shook his head in disbelief and a small amount of amusement, "If you aren't up in the next ten minutes, I'm going to eat your share of breakfast."

True to his word, the boy had breakfast ready by the time Toothless roused himself from his hut nearly fifteen minutes later. The two ate in companionable silence.

"I'm going to wash up in the stream I found yesterday," Hiccup broke the silence after they had both eaten their ration.

Toothless' head quirked up and an ear swiveled around to where the a stream could just barely be heard between the crashing waves of the ocean surrounding them. He whined in the back of his throat and nudged Hiccup's stump leg.

The boy stroked his ears with a small smile, "you'll be fine here?"

The dragon surveyed his immediate surroundings with an imperious tilt of his head before nodding once. With his friend's approval, Hiccup set out for a small stream of fresh water with his bundle of clothes to wash and a wineskin to fill.

Most of his clothes had washed out well after his tumble to the earth. They were ripped in a few places and hopelessly stained in others, but they were still wearable. To his surprise, however, Hiccup found that the tunic and trousers he had rescued from the barrels didn't get wet when he tried to wash them in the stream. While he waited for his clothes to dry next to the fire back at his hut, he tinkered with the leather garments. After a little bit of experimentation, trimming away excess leather, and taking in the garments to fit him better, Hiccup had managed to construct a waterproof suit complete with mittens and soft-soled boots.

"What do you think?" he asked the dragon, turning in place to show the entire ensemble. Toothless eyed him thoughtfully before chortling loudly.

"Toothless!" Hiccup shoved back at the laughing dragon. "It's about function! Not fashion!"

The dragon eyed him in a peculiar way that made the uncomfortable memory of Hiccup's excuse to Astrid when she had found Toothless for the first time float immediately to his attention. Designing outfits indeed! He scrubbed his face with the palm of his hand, peaking through his fingers at his smiling, scaly friend.

"Come on! Let's try it out!" He and Toothless raced down to the beach where Hiccup promptly threw himself into the waves. The cold was noticeable through his new clothing, but everything from his neck down miraculously stayed dry. Fishing took a little bit of practice, but Berk's main export was fish. Hiccup soon had the activity down to a science.

As the days flowed by, Hiccup found himself in repetitive motion. Every morning was spent up to his waist in the cold waters of the sea, wrangling in enough fresh fish to supplement Toothless' diet of smoked fish. Sometimes towards the end of his fishing Toothless would wade into the sea as well. Hiccup had a feeling that the cold helped to soothe the dragon's tail. Fishing certainly left him cold and numb. The small waves that beat against him sent shivers through his frame. As long as he was careful, however, the waves never found a way into his fishing suit and Hiccup stayed blessedly dry. He was always glad to leave the sea behind as he hauled his net of wriggling fish back to his hut.

While Hiccup waited for his bath water to heat in the metal pot on the hearth of the fire pit, he and Toothless ate their midday meal. Once the water was warm enough to bathe in, Hiccup attended to his hygiene. Being stranded on a strange island was no excuse to fall behind on keeping up his health. Gods did that thought sound crazy!

The afternoons were spent gathering and chopping wood for their fire. Occasionally Toothless would accompany him while he gathered sticks, mindful of his tail. The cut wood was carefully stacked inside his hut.

While the light was still good, Hiccup and Toothless basked in the sun. With Toothless grounded and Hiccup trying to keep them both alive, the two didn't have much time to spend together. An hour's nap in the sun had been commonplace on Berk, now it was seen as a luxury. Everyday the sun disappeared beyond the horizon sooner and the lengthening shadows of winter swallowed the island in their cold embrace.

When dusk fell, Hiccup returned to his hut for a dinner of smoked fish and whatever roots and plants he had found that day. Toothless enjoyed a few more fresh fish with his dinner. After they were done eating, Hiccup told stories of life on Berk and wondered what everyone was doing until the fire was no more than glowing embers. Then the boy piled ash onto the embers, to keep them fresh for starting the morning fire, before he and Toothless retired for the evening.

Two weeks passed in the same routine. The time was wearing poorly on both rider and dragon and as the days grew colder and frost began to blanket the countryside, both couldn't help but think of the home they had left behind. They fell into long bouts of silence with each other.

To try and keep his spirits up, Hiccup would fish out his charcoal stick and sit down with his journal by the firelight at night. Sometimes if he had time, Hiccup would sketch the island. Sheep, rocks, and the sea dominated the sketchbook he had brought. Occasionally, he sketched the dragons of Berk. Two full pages were filled with a portrait of Astrid. The picture had taken the better part of an afternoon to finish and Hiccup was dismayed to see that his memory of his loved ones was off. Barely a fortnight away from his island, and Hiccup was already beginning to forget the curve of Astrid's nose or the plaiting of Stoic's beard. In a morose moment, Hiccup wondered how long it would be until he forgot what everyone looked like entirely.

As the days stretched on, Toothless became increasingly frustrated with his limited mobility. Hiccup's own homesickness made him short tempered with the cranky dragon and, as a result, some days were spent ignoring each other completely.

Before he went to bed each night, Hiccup kept track of the days spent on their island with tally marks scratched into the wall of his hut. Fifteen scratches stood out next to the mythical beasts with flowing hair. Hiccup almost couldn't believe he had passed over a fortnight alone on the island with no one but Toothless and half a dozen sheep for company. The boy was beginning to go stir crazy when everything finally changed.

On the afternoon of the 16th day, a ship appeared on the horizon. Hiccup was out on the back cliffs sketching a couple of puffins when he saw the smudge on the horizon. Every so often over the next two hours, he would look up from his sketch book to see if he could make out what it was. As the smudge grew nearer, he managed to identify it as a ship. A ship that was miraculously heading for his island. Forgetting his sketch, Hiccup pocketed his notebook and sprinted back across the island to his hut. His father had finally come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who was wondering, the tunic and trousers are made out of seal skin. Also, short chapter is short.
> 
> Any and all feedback you guys have is greatly appreciated as I work to better this story, so please feel free to comment with your thoughts and suggestions. Here's a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has read this so far!


	6. Back on Berk

Hiccup had been gone for four days when Stoick began to worry. They had agreed that Hiccup would return in no later than three days and that lovable idiot had gone and missed the deadline! As any worried parent, Stoick's mind was filled with any manner of horrible situations that could have befallen his son. There could have been a storm or raiders or hostile tribes or, gods forbid, a sea monster.

The chieftain sat at one of the tables in the Great hall, a hunk of bread clutched in his fist as he mulled over what he should do about Hiccup. As Stoick's worry and anger began to seep through, the bread was absently crushed into crumbs.

Most of Berk's Vikings knew to steer clear of the great hall when their chief was in a rage. As soon as dinner had finished, the hall emptied quickly leaving Stoick alone to worry. Only Gobber stayed behind with their fearsome leader, immune to most of Stoick's fits after years of knowing the man.

"What am I going to do with him, Gobber?" Stoick asked his longtime friend as the man hobbled over with two tankards of mead.

"He could be out there, crashed on some deserted island with no way to get back," Stoick slammed his tankard down, mead sloshing over the rim and onto both Vikings.

"Let's not jump to conclusions just yet, Stoick." Gobber reasoned as he wiped his mead soaked hand on his tunic front. "The boy's as headstrong as you ever were. He's probably out there mapping islands or gods know what and forgot to come back on time. Hiccup's never been one for being on time."

"I swear to all the gods in Asgard, when that boy gets back, I'm never letting him leave again." Stoick swirled the last of his mead around at the bottom of his tankard. "What if he doesn't come back? What if something has happened?"

Gobber looked out at the pouring rain. From the sound of the storm outside, Thor was battling something mighty. "Give him another day. If he isn't back by then, send the boats out."

Stoick sighed and stood to face the open door, "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Goodnight, Gobber."

The next day passed agonizingly slow for the chief. He tried to keep busy helping with the harvest and construction on the dragon barn. Most of the Vikings of Berk had their hands full hauling in the crop of grain, oats, and vegetables. Those who weren't helping with the harvest or the barn were preparing for the winter. The last of the spring wool had been carded and spun into thread. The weavers were working overtime to turn out warm clothing and blankets for the winter. A select number of yaks had been set aside for slaughter. Their fur would be woven into blankets and their hide tanned into leather for dragon saddles and armor. The meat would be separated by the butcher and smoked to last the winter months.

It was a busy time of year for Berk and Stoick didn't know how many people he could spare to look for Hiccup. He desperately prayed that his son was somewhere out there fooling about and not in dire trouble. As Stoick labored through the day, he could not turn his thoughts away from Hiccup. Every time he heard a dragon in the sky above, he turned from his work hoping that it was Hiccup returning home with a goofy smile and a thoroughly perplexing excuse as to why he was late. But every time Stoick turned to look, Hiccup wasn't there.

"Has he come back yet?" Astrid had questioned when she caught Stoick lingering at the dragon school.

Stoick sighed at the girl, "No."

"What are you going to do?" she asked as the chief helped her feed the dragons.

The fish in Stoick's hand crumpled at his tightening grip, "I'm going to find him."

The day wore out and night crowded the sky. No one had seen Hiccup return and Stoick resolved to start looking for his missing son. The great hall was noisy with the conversations and laughter of tired Vikings sated with good food and drink after a long day's work. Stoick stood from his chair at the head of the hall and banged his tankard down on the table, the conversation fell away and all eyes turned to him. "As most of you know, Hiccup set out a few days ago for the trading lands. He has yet to return."

A murmur ran through the gathered Vikings before a glare form Stoick silenced them. "Tomorrow I will be organizing a search for him. I will personally lead a ship out to the trading lands to find him. I need volunteers for a small crew, anyone who isn't busy with the harvest."

A few hands poked above the crowd and soon their owners stepped forward. Among the group was Gobber, "We're with you Stoick."

"Good. I need the dragon school to send out a small group of riders to scour the islands and make sure Hiccup didn't end up somewhere nearby," Stoick continued. "Astrid, you're in charge of organizing that."

The Viking teen nodded from her place in the crowd, already running through names of people she trusted to look for Hiccup. She'd sell her soul to Hel before gave up looking for Hiccup.

"Spitelout is in charge until I get back. The ship sails at dawn," Stoick swept out of the great hall in a lumbering twirl of wool and fur. The giant doors slammed in his wake.

The walk to his house seemed to stretch forever as Stoick thought through everything he'd need to get together for the search party. Somewhere out there his son was lost and needed him. For most of the boy's life Stoick hadn't been there for him, he'd be damned if he lost him when their relationship was finally on the mend.

He spent a few hours tossing and turning in bed before rising early to prepare for the journey. Gobber met him on the docks with a few other volunteers and helped him load the ship. "We'll find him, Stoick."

Stoick nodded in return, the cold mask of the chief firmly in place over the worried frown of a father. He silently finished preparations before shoving off. Dawn was just breaking over the sea stacks as the ship glided almost soundlessly out to sea. Overhead the dragons passed by, heading out to the north and east.

Stoick stood at the rudder of his best ship, determination twisting his features into hard lines. He would find his son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter. This one only underwent minor edits, mostly just fixing names and cleaning up the dialogue. I'm halfway through editing the entire story and also halfway through a new chapter (that's getting out of hand and I might have to split into two chapters). Hopefully, I will have the edits finished by the end of May and the new chapter out in June.


	7. Viking Raids

The sound of ships drawing closer to the shore startled Toothless from his afternoon nap. He padded out of his hut to see the vague outline of a ship coming towards their island through the sea fog. The dragon's ears perked up, maybe rescue had come? He hugged the side of the hut as the wind blew by, hoping to get a better view of the incoming ship. A gust of wind caught Toothless upside his face and the dragon's hope faltered. The scent the breeze carried from the ship was foreign.

Not sure what to make of this strange smelling ship, the dragon's ears flattened against his head and he sank down on his haunches. Toothless crouched behind one of the huts, ready to make a dash for the treeline at a moment's notice. No sooner had he concealed himself, than Toothless heard the distinctive clank of Hiccup's leg as the boy ran down the path to their huts. What was the boy thinking?!

Hiccup charged out onto the beach, arms waving frantically over his head. "Dad! Dad!"

A large figure launched itself over the side of the boat. Hiccup ran forward into the surf, arms still waving manically. "Dad! It's about time you came! What, did you get lost?!"

The large figure advanced towards Hiccup an axe gripped aggressively in his hands and a smooth helm guarding his face. Waves crashed and broke against the figure, but he wasn't moved. Hiccup stumbled back, slipping in the sea. The figure continued to advance, a shout to Thor rising from his lips.

"Dad?" with a cry Hiccup fell onto his rear as his feet lost their battle for traction. He scooted backwards from the large viking before desperately scrambling back onto his feet and bolting up the beach. The viking lunged after Hiccup, a meaty arm reaching out to savagely throw him down. The boy tumbled head over heels into the shallows with a scream, "Toothless!"

A roar rose from Toothless' throat as he leaped from his hiding place. A plasma bolt shot from his mouth and knocked the axe from the viking's hands. The dragon bounded down the beach towards his rider, ignoring the shooting pains from his tail. No one threatened his rider.

"Dreki! Dreki!" the vikings in the boat yelled. Hiccup was hauled kicking and screaming against the chest of his attacker as he charged through the waters with an unholy yell.

Toothless crashed wildly into the sea after them. Teeth managed to latch onto Hiccup's sheepskin vest for a brief moment. The boy was nearly pulled from the grip of the larger Viking before the man gave a savage yank and the vest tore. Toothless stumbled back with a mouthful of sheepskin as Hiccup was hauled over the side of the Viking ship by numerous hands. The dragon reared on his hind legs and shot another plasma bolt at the ship. Grating and splintering wood filled the air with a deafening crash, nearly overtaking the desperate shouts of the Vikings and the roar of the dragon as he reared up to shoot again. The Vikings on the ship crouched down on the deck, fearful of the black creature attacking them.

The gas had collected in Toothless' throat when the wave caught him by surprise. Pulled under briefly by the current, Toothless was buffeted tail over head towards the shore. When he finally corrected and bounded out of the water again to launch himself at the ship, he was hopelessly wet and his fire gone. He bounded after the ship, his teeth snapping at the bow as both dragon and vikings struggled to clear the breakers. With one last desperate attempt, Toothless launched himself out of the sea. Black scales and fierce claws cut a mighty arc through the air towards the ship. Right before he landed on the deck, two oars connected solidly with the side of his head and neck. Toothless sailed through the air before slamming back into the water with a great splash.

"No! Toothless! Toothless!" Hiccup's cries were lost a midst the triumphant whoops of his Viking captors. The ship cleared the breakers and made for the open sea.

The sea carried Toothless' battered body back to shore, water swirling around his form as he lay on the beach. Laid out on his side in the sand, his injured tail curled protectively into his body; Toothless' mournful cries pursued the shrinking form of the ship that had stolen his best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sure most of you already know thanks to tumblr and youtube, but Vikings didn't actually have horns on their helmets. That's an invention by the Victorians during the Viking Revival in art (which you should totally look up, because there are some bitchin paintings out there). 
> 
> Also, most Viking longships had very shallow bottoms to handle sailing up rivers, so getting as close to shore as they did is perfectly plausible and features in one of the foremost theories of the harbour construction of the great Viking trade towns. Dreki is the term in Old Norse used for dragons.


	8. A Land Far Away

The world swam in a diluted mess of colour and darkness before Hiccup's eyes. The rough motion of the boat as it rode choppy waves did little to soothe the nausea roiling in his stomach. Pain pulsed behind Hiccup's eyes in rhythm with the tossing ship. He tried to moan, but his tongue felt too large in his mouth. When he tried to move, uncooperative limbs could do no more than flop weakly against the slick wood of the ship's deck.

Ship. That's right. He was on a ship. Wasn't he? Yes, when he thought about it, he could vaguely remember a raid. The echoes of mournful cries haunted his mind. "T'less," he slurred.

Above him a harsh noise drummed incessantly. It almost sounded like shouting. His father had come to wake him up; he must have slept in again. No, that wasn't right. He was on a ship. Stoick wasn't here. Hiccup moaned drunkenly as the world dimmed to gray and then everything went black.

When Hiccup next journeyed back into the waking world, his headache had dulled from a splitting pain to a dull throb. Green eyes blinked open and Hiccup was faced with a view of dark, wet wood. The side of his face and his nose was pressed awkwardly into the planking.

With a groan, Hiccup tried to roll over onto his back. He bit back another moan when hands he hadn't realized were bound behind his back dug into his spine and strained his sore shoulders. "Wa' 'appnd? He slurred.

Someone shouted unintelligible garble at him before a hand clamped around his upper arm and hauled him onto legs that had long lost any feeling. As soon as the hand released him, he fell back onto the deck and curled onto his side. Laughter surrounded him.

Hiccup was hauled to his feet again and shoved forward into someone's hands. Through the curtain of hair that had fallen over his eyes, Hiccup saw men dressed in an assortment of died wool and leather armor unloading goods into waiting carts in the surf. The ship bobbed nauseatingly with the waves where it was tied to its mooring post. Arms stretched over the side of the ship and grabbed Hiccup. The boy was hauled over the side, clipping his trailing ankle painfully on the edge of a shield mounted to the ship. His feet connected with the waves and he was pushed forward towards another man. Hiccup stumbled along, barely avoiding crashing to his knees in the ocean.

Two meaty hands grabbed his upper arms and propelled him out of the ocean towards the land. Vaguely Hiccup was aware of someone cutting away the ropes binding his hands and fastening cold shackles to his wrists. He was forced to sit with the rest of the captives and goods on a wooden pier running along the shore. His head was swimming with the flurry of activity and an undercurrent of panic. Hiccup had no idea where he was or who had taken him. His mind reeled with questions through the haze of whatever herbs he had been given. Glancing about him, Hiccup saw a man and a girl around his age huddled together to his right. The shackles that bound his wrist connected to the two captives and then to an iron wring anchored into a post.

The man and girl whispered to each other in a lilting language. The tone was softer than Hiccup was used to hearing back on Berk. A few of the words were familiar to Hiccup, but he couldn't make out what they were saying.

"Where are we?" he asked the two.

Neither the girl or the man stopped their hushed conversation to reply to him. Hiccup sighed.

Finally, the ship was unloaded and the men began to haul away the goods around Hiccup. The large man who had captured him back on the island hauled Hiccup and the other two captives to their feet. He took the leading chain in both his meaty hands while another Viking brought up the rear. Together, the two Vikings marched their captives into town.

An ocean of wood greeted the group as the wound their way through a confusing labyrinth of buildings and wooden walkways. Hiccup had never seen so many houses and shops in one place. People bustled about their lives and trades everywhere around him. Different languages and foreign words created a constant buzz of noise.

The men stopped the group of captives in front of a small wood and thatch building. A cart pulled by a barrel chested animal with four legs stood outside the building. The creature had a long tail and flowing hair falling from its neck. Hiccup wondered if this was the fantastical beast he saw carved into the wall of his hut back on the island.

"Hord, Thrandl!" the man leading the group yelled as the door to the building banged open.

"Aye. Aye, we're coming," a boy much larger than Hiccup replied gruffly as he stood stooped in the doorway. He bustled out quickly and propelled the three captives inside the dimly lit building.

There was a workbench up against one wall with bits of iron on it. Along the far wall straw pallets lay with iron anchors secured into the wall posts above them. A gaunt boy sat on one of the pallets, watching the proceedings with a vacant expression. Behind them the two men stooped into the building, momentarily blocking out the sunlight with their large frames.

Quickly the four Viking men set about removing the running chain from the shackles on the captives' wrists. Hiccup was herded away to the workbench by Thrandl, the large Viking boy. The metal bits that Hiccup had seen laying on it when he had entered the building moments before turned out to be hammered iron collars.

"No! No!" Hiccup shouted as he thrashed in Thrandl's arms, kicking at the larger boy's shins and grappling with his arms for whatever purchase he could grasp. Thrandl roughly shoved him up against the workbench and pinned him with his bulk.

"Quiet!" he shouted into Hiccup's face. A large hand reached around him to retrieve the hammered iron. Despite Hiccup's renewed struggles one of the collars was set about his neck and twisted shut with a startling finality. Thrandl gave a sharp tug on the collar and sent Hiccup pitching forward, barely catching himself on his hands and knees as he fell.

Before the boy could scramble to his feet, a chain was attached to the collar at his neck and then through the shackles on his wrist. Hiccup looked up to see Hord with his hand on the other end of the chain. The large viking man smiled slightly before yanking the chain toward him. Hiccup was pulled forward with a cry, hunched over to alleviate some of the pressure on his neck. He was led over to the pallet next to the gaunt boy and his chain was fastened to a wall anchor. Thrandl immediately took the chain from Hord's hands and gave it a good tug, seemingly satisfied with the security of the anchor being moving on to help one of the other Viking men secure the captive woman.

Finally the other two captives were secured to the wall next to Hiccup. The four Vikings stood over their captives. Hord walked down the line of captives, an appraising stare roving over each one. He stopped in front of Hiccup and grabbed his chin, turning his head to either side. Hiccup glared back at him with defiance.

"It's thin and crippled. How many winters has it seen?" Hord asked the two Viking men from the ship.

One of them shrugged, "Don't know. We took it from a Dreki's nest out on the islands."

Hord looked surprised at the news before turning back to Hiccup, "Can't be more than fifteen winters, Odin knows how it survived the Dreki. I'll give you three ounces of gold, no more."

"It's worth at least five," one of the Vikings from the ship growled.

Hord released Hiccup's chin and stood to his full height, "I don't negotiate, ye know that." He held the other Vikings' glares until they backed down. With a satisfied huff, Hord moved down the line. Hiccup watched in a disbelieving haze as the Viking evaluated the other captives before handing over gold and hack silver to the men from the ship.

Hiccup had grown up with tales of barbarians and slave traders from distant lands and he knew that several of the other tribes on the Barbaric archipelago practiced slavery. There was no question in his mind that these Vikings were slave traders. What person would pay money for another human being with so little regard for their humanity?

A dark ball of fear twisted around his stomach as Hord and Thrandl discussed taking them to market the next day. What nightmare had he found himself in?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm basing Hiccup's people more off of the Norse-Gaels than the actual Vikings. This is why Hiccup could understand a few words of the other captives' speech (I have these two captives coming from Northeast Ireland, likely where the ship that captured Hiccup had been raiding).
> 
> The trading town in this chapter is based off of the Kaupang in Skiringssal. This was an early Norwegian trading town during the Viking Age. Even though I am borrowing the setting from Norway, most of the resources available that I have read (including the proses and laws) are from Iceland. So this will be a weird mix between different influences.
> 
> The reason why the traders referred to Hiccup as in "it" is because thralls in Viking times were a class of people without rights. When people spoke of thralls, they used the neuter "gender" instead of the masculine "gender" for nouns. Hence the it (closest thing we have in English).


	9. Into Slavery

"Up!" a voice wormed its way into Hiccup's exhausted stupor. He rolled on his side to escape the noise and fall back into oblivion.

"Up!" the voice commanded again. A sharp clanking followed the shout and Hiccup jerked painfully awake as his chains were rattled. Hord stood with his hand on Hiccup's chain, shaking the links insistently as the boy shot upright.

Thrandl came directly behind the older man, a bucket in one hand some wooden bowls in the other. He dunked the bowl into the bucket and emerged with a bowlful of mush. The bowl was plunked down in front of Hiccup, "eat!"

With shaking hands, Hiccup reached for the bowl and shoveled some of the tan gruel into his mouth. A familiar taste of oats coated his tongue in slime and he struggled to swallow the gelatinous mess.

"Eat!" Thrandl yelled again from where he was scooping a bowl for the foreign woman.

Hiccup cradled the bowl to his chest and looked out at the dark town through a crack in the wall just above his head. Gods, Sól had not even begun her journey across the sky at this hour! Finally, the boy choked down the last of the oats, coughing as the mush stuck to the roof of his mouth and back of his throat.

Almost as soon as his coughing subsided, Thrandl was in front of him again. The bowl was ripped from his hands and a bucket of sloshing water placed in front of him. Hiccup looked down the line to see the other captives washing the faces and necks in the tepid water. Thrandl rattled his chains again and Hiccup took the hint. He scooped some water and splashed it into his face, washing away the sticky remnants of his breakfast. Even in a foreign place and held against his will, Hiccup was surprised how good it felt to be clean again.

Once everyone was groomed to Hord's liking, the captives were ushered outside. Thrandl sat in front of the the building in a cart hitched to the barrel-chested fantastical beast. Hord tugged on the chain binding the thralls and lead Hiccup and the other three captives into the back of the cart and carefully secured them. Once everyone was tied down, the older man clambered up front to sit next to Thrandl and the cart lurched into movement.

They had only been rattling down the street for a few minutes when the gaunt boy Hiccup had been chained next to spoke, "What's your name?"

"My name's Hiccup, son of Stoick," Hiccup gave a more formal introduction, unsure of how to act. His shackled hands began to pick at the fraying hem of his shirt.

"I'm called Onundr the Gaunt," the gaunt boy offered without prompting. "How did you end up here?"

"They took me from my home," Hiccup tried to keep his voice from sounding as small and young as he felt.

Onundr sniffed disgustedly at the smell of pigs as they passed a meat market, "I was a freeman's son too, once upon a time."

"What happened?" Hiccup prompted, apprehensive but also eager to please the one person who had treated him like a human since his capture.

"One of the men in my village tried to force himself on me so I slew him. My family couldn't afford to pay the reparations so I was made a thrall and traded up the coast," Onundr picked at his teeth, his face set into a purposefully blank mask.

"Wow, that's awful," Hiccup wasn't sure which part of Onundr's story to be the most horrified at. These people were so strange, so different from what Hiccup knew. Berk hadn't seen a murder in almost two generations.

Before Onundr could continue his conversation, the cart bounced to a stop outside of a central market. All around people were setting up benches with wares to sell. As Thrandl secured the cart, Hord pulled Hiccup, Onundr, and the other thralls out of the cart.

The four were ushered up onto wooden blocks in the market place and the running chain between them was removed. Hiccup's tunic was untied and maneuvered over the collar around his neck. He was left bare-chested and shivering in the brisk autumn morning.

Once the captives' clothing was removed down to their smallclothes they were chained to individual posts. Hord and Thrandl secured each chain with a strong tug, promising to wrench all of their necks out should someone try to run.

People swarmed around Hiccup and the other thralls, poking and prodding at their bodies. Hiccup had never felt more like an object at any other time in his life. Even if Berk had considered him a nuisance for the majority of his life, Hiccup was still a person to them.

One man forced Hiccup's mouth open to inspect his teeth. The taut chain at his neck was the only thing keeping him from biting the man. All around Hiccup people talked business about his body and those of the other thralls without a care.

"This one ain't got a limb. I could nae use it," one commented loudly about Hiccup as his metal leg was tapped.

A woman with wide hips and a weathered face inspected Onundr, "It's a sickly one, cannae be worth more than four ounces."

Hord countered her offer, "It's seen many 'arsh winters, knows how to werk 'em too. Seven ounces of gold and no less."

The woman seemed to consider this for a moment before handing over a bag of hack silver. Hord carefully measured out the woman's offer on his scale before unhooking Onundr's collar from the running chain and handing the boy over.

"I'll give ye six ounces fer the concubine," one man offered Thrandl.

Hearing his offer, Hord again weighed out the offered gold on his scale. "This only come' out to five ounces."

The man grumbled in reply before handing over a silver bracelet. Thrandl took the bracelet and carefully shaved off the required amount, adding the hack silver to the scale when he was done. Hord double-checked the weight before declaring a sale.

Hiccup watched out of the corner of his vision as the woman from the ship was handed over. His stomach twisted at the thought of what would be awaiting her as a concubine. Without realizing it, the boy's eyes had filled with tears that threatened to spill. Biting his lip in concentration, Hiccup turned his head to the sky and watched smoke from the town climb to meet the clouds. He sniffled lightly and closed his eyes. A cold breeze dried the tears at the corner of his eyes and Hiccup focused on the cold numbing his bare chest and hands to keep from crying.

The man who had inspected his mouth was circling him now, poking at his shoulder muscles before stooping to evaluate his prosthetic. Hiccup had never felt more vulnerable than in the center of this crowd as they picked apart his physical wellbeing and estimated his worth. Finally the man seemed done with his evaluation and turned to Hord, "Five ounces fer the boy."

Hord looked the man up and down for a moment before weighing his gold. Satisfied with the quality, the Viking unhooked Hiccup's collar and allowed the man to lead him off.

A strong hand curled around Hiccup's bicep and another holding the smaller chain attached to the boy's collar insured he had very little maneuverability. Hiccup was deposited in the back of a wagon along with a few barrels of mead, a sack of lumpy vegetables, and a trunk of some sort into which the man threw his pouch of gold. His chain was attached to the iron handle of the trunk.

The wagon lurched out of the town, leaving behind the noise and bustling activity. The beast pulling the wagon picked its way carefully over the pitted road as they traveled up the coast. The landscape surrounding them still held the last hints of summer greenery. Rocks jutted out over the rolling hills and the waves crashing against the cliffs below them created ambient noise. Gulls and puffins occasionally flew overhead as the wagon bounced along the path. Hiccup watched the town grow smaller and smaller on the horizon. How was his father going to find him now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang, ended two chapters in a row with a question, I need to work on varying my sentences. For anyone who's curious, a thrall is basically just the Viking term for a slave. Depressing side note, the design of slave chains didn't change much from 10th century viking use up to the 18th century West African slave trade (just goes to show that humans are consistently shitty). The amount of chains I described in the chapter is probably not very realistic given that metal is a lot more expensive than a fiber rope, but I really like to describe rattling apparently. 
> 
> Is this story getting too lost in the historical detail or do you guys actually like this stuff?


	10. A New Life

After nearly a day of traveling, the wagon finally lurched to a stop outside a large longhouse. Even though it was still in the early afternoon, the sun was sinking low behind the longhouse. The fields around the farm lay barren as livestock grazed in pastures.

The man to whom Hiccup now belonged clambered down from the wagon and circled around back. He shouted up to the longhouse and a woman jogged out to meet them. The man hefted the trunk to which Hiccup's chain was attached and dragged it out of the wagon. The boy followed as the chain jerked on his collar. Hiccup's ankle caught in the wheel well on his way down and he sprawled in the muddy ground. From where his face was smashed into the soft earth, Hiccup watched as the woman from the longhouse untangled his ankle and removed the bruised limb from the twisted grip of the wagon. She hauled Hiccup to his feet.

"Hedda," the man addressed the woman as he unlatched Hiccup's chain from the trunk. "this is here to replace Olaf. Take it inside."

"Ja. I send oot Snortr und Skili to help," Hedda called over her shoulder as she frog-marched Hiccup up to the longhouse.

The house was long and considerably large for a single family. The roof was covered in patches of summer greenery as dirt walls sloped down to meet a stone foundation. A wooden door was framed by a wall of stone, holding up one end of the turf roof. Berk's position on a cliff and abundant use of cave systems and lumber had made the ancient construction of turf houses obsolete. It was only in the village stories and myths of heroes long since passed that the image of the large houses of grass, dirt, and stone had survived. Hiccup marveled at the primitive yet effective construction of the farm's great house.

Hedda released Hiccup arms to open the heavy wood door and shove him inside. The interior was dimly lit and filled with the sounds of domestic life. The scratching of wool carders mixed with the squawks of geese, the baying of a milk goat, and the loud howl of a fluffy creature with a long snout and a lolling tongue.

A long corridor stretched down the length of the building, flanked on either side by wooden benches built around floor-to-ceiling support columns. In the middle of the room a gaggle of women and girls sat around a central fire, carding wool, snapping beans, and preparing meat for the evening meal.

"Snortr, Skili!" Hedda bellowed as she slammed the door behind them against the wind and chill outside.

A young boy with wide gray eyes and broad shoulders materialized next to Hedda. Hiccup startled nervously at his sudden appearance.

"Where Skili?" Hedda demanded as she rounded on the boy.

"He's with die svín," Skili replied, gesturing towards the door.

Hedda heaved a frustrated sigh, "Ja, can't be h'lped. Go h'lp Master Sigfred unload vagninn."

Skili scampered out the door without another word, large feet squelching in the churned up mud. Hedda shut the door behind him before latching on to Hiccup's arms again. She marched him down the long corridor, around the gaggle of women, and back to a smaller corridor that branched off from the main one. This corridor was set lower in the ground, but the main walls were still lined with benches and support columns. There was a fire pit in the center of the room over which a sheep flank was roasting.

A girl with plaited brown hair and blue eyes was bent over a quern, grinding wheat. Her back was hunched in exertion as she turned the handstone. Hedda shoved Hiccup into the room before turning to the girl, "Geirhilda!"

The girl at the quern stopped grinding and sprang to her feet. "Ja, Hedda?"

"It needs tunic. Dann back to verk." Hedda instructed the girl while she led Hiccup over to an empty bench. "Ye sleep her'," she gestured to the empty bench.

"Send him oot vhen you are done," Hedda called to Geirhilda. Hiccup started at the order. He had just been addressed as a human being for the first time since coming to this strange land. Overwhelmed with his new surroundings and conflicting emotions, the boy sank onto the bench he had been assigned. The rough slab of wood was quite wide, but a good bit shorter than his height. A support column at his feet and another at his head separated his bench from the others lining this wall.

Geirhilda approached him warily, a tunic in her hands. She dropped the garment in Hiccup's lap without a word and went back to her quern. The sound of stones grinding wheat filled the small space. Hiccup watched her for a few moments before tugging the tunic over his head. The fabric caught on his collar and the boy struggled to maneuver it over the ghastly piece of iron. When the tunic finally was free, it tumbled down to below Hiccup's knees and the sleeves swallowed his hands whole. Hiccup tugged the laces at the neckline and sides as tight as they would go and rolled the sleeves up. The cloth was itchy against his skin and the dirty colour was one he had come to associate with undyed wool.

Almost as soon as he had finished adjusting the tunic, Geirhilda guided him out of the longhouse to stand blinking in the dimming twilight. The sun had almost fallen below the horizon and the moon was already climbing into the sky. Darkness was falling over the bustling farm.

"B'y!" Hedda's shrill and heavily accented voice cut through the farm. Hiccup jumped in surprise before hurrying over to the hefty woman's side where she stood next to a wagon. A larger man on top of the wagon was handing down a dense mass of dirt. Skili stood beside Hedda, helping to haul the dirt to a smaller turf house protruding from the side of the main turf house.

Hedda dumped several squares of dirt into Hiccup's arms and pushed him towards the smaller turf house. The dirt stank horribly of a bog and, after several armloads, Hiccup realized the stuff was peat. The fuel wasn't used often in Berk because of the abundance of wood and the scarcity of bogs, but one of the neighboring tribes relied heavily on it. Hiccup allowed his thoughts to wander back to the Barbaric Archipelago as he and Skili ran the peat up to the house, racing against nightfall before the wagon was finally emptied.

As the small group trudged back to the main house, Hiccup tried in vain to wipe off the filth that was now staining his tunic. The night meal was served without much excitement. After chewing on salted pork, some stale bread, and slurping down some mead Hiccup was exhausted. In a daze Hiccup barely registered Geirhilda leading him off to bed. He was shoved down onto his bench and automatically curled up into the ragged wool that someone had laid out for him.

Hiccup stared blankly at the dirt wall his bench was built into. It seemed hard to believe that just this morning he had stood on the auction block in the center of an unknown trading center. Hiccup sniffled slightly as his thoughts flew back to Berk and his family. He hoped his father would come and take him away from this nightmare. His eyes slipped closed unbidden and he fell into a dreamless sleep as his physical and emotional exhaustion took hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiccup's new home is based off of the reconstructed Viking farm at Stong in Iceland. The farm was buried in the 1104 eruption of Mt. Hekla so it fits perfectly into the time frame for this story.
> 
> The dialect I'm experimenting with is my own stereotypical swenglish pronunciation and a mixture of German and Icelandic words. One of the reasons some of these words aren't translated for you is because Hiccup would have spoken a Norse-Gael dialect and wouldn't have picked up on all of the Norse words and accents. I know very little Icelandic, but do speak some German so I'm favouring the German side (Hedda originated from a Germanic tribe, so she will mainly be the one using German words).
> 
> Hopefully the story is still intriguing for you guys, we have a ways to go yet!


	11. Desperate Acts

The first week of Hiccup's captivity passed in a similar manner. Hedda, whom he later learned was the overseer of the thralls, kept him engaged in manual labour. He was forced to haul water from the well on a shoulder yoke. When his shoulder muscles and back felt like they would be shredded by the constant strain, Hedda moved him over to churning. Milk from the goats that Geirhilda tended to was turned into a lumpy butter under his inexperienced hands.

Occasionally he would help Skili unload peat and iron nodules from the wagons coming in from the bogs. Snortr and an older male thrall Hiccup had yet to learn the names of were harvesting the last a nearby peat bog before the weather turned too cold. Skili told him in snatches as they hauled the stinking peat that normally such tasks would have been finished in the late summer, but a fire in their peat stores had set them back two moons.

When the day's work was finally down, Hiccup would sink exhausted into his place on the outer ring of the night meal. Occasionally he would hear Sigfred and his wife Alfhild converse with their children and siblings about life in the nearby town and the coming winter. The best Hiccup could figure, there were three families living together in the longhouse.

At the end of the night meal, Hiccup would fall exhausted into his bed, praying to no god in particular for dreams of home. The morning would bring a repeat of the day before.

On the eighth day of his captivity, Hiccup saw on opening. Sigfred had sent him, Snortr, and Hedda two hours south towards the town Hiccup had come from to repair stacked stone fences around the perimeter of their farm. To make the walk down to the fence in good time, the two thralls and the overseer were required to be up before the day-meal. Hedda had made sure there was enough food for the day packed away into leather satchels that each of the thralls carried at their hips along with a wineskin each of mead.

As they wound their way down the path towards the southern perimeter fence, Hiccup had noticed the road back into town paralleling them. A plan began to form in his head. He had enough food and mead to last him two days if he stretched it. All he had to do was wait for a moment where he could slip away unnoticed and then run as if Surtr himself was behind him with his flaming sword.

They were nearing the fence, Snortr and Hedda a small distance ahead of him when Hiccup finally put his plan to action. The boy dropped back some more and the two kept walking, not paying much attention to him. Hiccup dropped back behind a low hill before cutting over to the road. With his heart pounding in his throat at the thought of getting caught, Hiccup scrambled across the road. On the other side, the bank sloped down towards the ocean. He stumbled down the bank and ran along the lower rocks. It was a hard scramble that sent bits of scree clattering down to the water, but it was too low to be seen from across the road. If he could just get some distance between him and Hedda, he might be able to climb back up to the road.

Hiccup continued to follow the lower rock line for a ways before scrambling back up the bank. He lay just below the level of the road for several minutes, listening intently for any sounds of pursuit. When nothing but the wind and distant bleating of sheep sounded, Hiccup climbed back onto the road.

His heart was still hammering in his ribcage and his hands were torn from his desperate scramble across sharp rocks. Hiccup started walking along the road at an easier pace, hoping to catch his breath back. His torn hand fumbled at the belt holding his lunch and wineskin before finally managing to unhook the skin. Hiccup gulped at the mead, thankful for something to soothe his dry and irritated throat. A noise behind the boy could be heard over the wind and Hiccup paused as he tried to wedge the cap back into the wineskin. It sounded again. The wineskin now forgotten in his hand, Hiccup looked over his shoulder to see where the noise was coming from.

He was blindsided by Hedda. The two fell to the road in a bundle of rags, sloshing mead, and loud oaths. The struggle lasted only a minute before Hedda had Hiccup's wildly bucking form trapped beneath her. She sat on the boy until his struggles ceased and he sagged panting into the mud around him. As soon as the fight left Hiccup, Hedda hauled him up by his iron collar and shook him like the rag doll he used to play with.

"See this, b'y?" she demanded as she shoved him away roughly by the collar. Hiccup fell back to the ground with a cry, one hand flying up to his bruised neck and the other to protect his head. Hedda loomed over him, nostrils flared wide and small eyes glinting dangerously. She grabbed his collar again and hauled him up to his knees by it, "this is our sign of slav'ry. No one h'lp ye, b'y, if ye wear this."

She let Hiccup sag back to the ground and squatted beside him, "ve have no rights before lögin, the law. Ye are thrall. Get th't through yer head, b'y."

After a moment Hedda hooked her arm around Hiccup's and hauled him to his feet, "up, we have verk to do. Ye have to verk if ye vant to keep yer place."

Hiccup was marched back along the road, dismayed to see that he had only made it but half of a mile before being caught. Hedda put him straight to work, a stern eye on him at all times. Snortr said very little as Hedda directed him to the easier tasks and left much of the hauling to Hiccup. Soon the boy's arms shook with the weight of stone slabs as he handed each individual piece to Hedda and Snortr to set into the wall with practiced hands and expert eyes.

When the group packed up to make the trip back to the longhouse, Hedda made sure Hiccup bore the heaviest tools. As they trekked through the rolling landscape and jutting rocks, Hedda kept Hiccup behind Snortr and in front of her. The sun was setting before they made it back to the longhouse. Without a word, Snortr took the tools and lumbered inside. Hedda remained outside with Hiccup, hands on her wide hips and eyes glinting with anger, "Yer new b'y, ye've got ta learn yer place. I give ye this one time, but ye do it again and I vill tell master Sigfred. Ye'll be h'lping Herbjorn fer quarter moon oot cutting peat. Ye von't have vilja to do much else."

The next few days were passed in agony. Every morning Hiccup was forced out of bed before dawn and handed a meal of dry bread and some variety of salted meat. He had to help Herbjorn hitch the mystical beast with flowing hair and tail to a wagon and then they'd be off with the first light of Sol. They spent the day far to the northwest in a bog that grew increasingly cold with the day. Herbjorn was a large and very serious man. He spoke seldom and gazed at Hiccup with eyes that had long gone dead.

Herbjorn taught Hiccup how to cut off the first few inches of greenery on the top of the bog to expose the turf below. While Herbjorn cut out blocks of peat, Hiccup shifted through the greenery for nodules of iron which he collected in a bucket. He also learned how to lay out and dry the peat before it was to be taken back to the wagon.

After a day of nonstop cutting and hauling, Hiccup's back was in knots and his arms cramped. He had trouble standing straight and now knew why Herbjorn had a permanent slump to his back. The ride back to the longhouse was passed in silence. Skili or Snortr were usually waiting to help unload the peat.

Once everything was squared away Hiccup would stumble into the house for the evening meal. He ate quickly under the watchful eye of Hedda before falling into bed, utterly exhausted and dreading the next morning. Nearly a week passed in the same fashion before Hedda finally had pity on him.

Hiccup was roused from his bed by the rough shaking of Hedda's calloused hand. "I'm up, I'm up," he mumbled as his hands automatically fumbled for his tunic and belt in the darkness.

Hedda watched him get dressed impassively. "B'y!" she called and watched in satisfaction as Hiccup's head dipped and his shoulders rounded out at her sharp command.

"Yes?" he questioned tentatively, twisting his overly large sleeve in his hands.

"Ye are verking with Skili today, ve are in need of goatherd," Hedda nearly smiled at the relief that coursed visibly through Hiccup. "I trust ye know yer place now, und if ye need another lesson, Herbjorn always needs h'lp. Master Sigfred is gut man. So long as ye verk, he will take care of ye. Fishbone b'y like ye should be grateful master Sigfred found ye."

Hiccup stared at the ground, biting back the sharp retort on the tip of his tongue. He may have been cowed, but the woman had yet to break him. Haddocks were made of sterner stuff. He settled with nodding at the overseer.

Hedda looked Hiccup up and down with a critical eye, "someone must have loved ye, b'y." There was contempt in her voice.

"A lot of people have said that," Hiccup replied wearily. He was beyond the point of trying to remain civil.

"An'one but sentimental fool would h've l'ft you ta the elements. Runt of litter?" she questioned.

"First born, actually," Hiccup had a sinking feeling he knew what the woman was referring to. Sometimes when a sickly child was born and deemed not strong enough to survive, the parents would leave them out in the open to die of exposure. While Berk had abandoned the practice nearly half a century before Hiccup's birth, other Viking tribes in the Barbaric archipelago still held to it.

Hedda threw back her head in laughter, "Ye were really loved."

Hiccup scowled. "I guess I was."

The early morning passed quickly. Before any of the other thralls were even up, Hedda had Hiccup fetching water and running tasks. When the sun finally lit up the sky with hues of pink and orange, Hedda released Hiccup to his day of work.

"Get to verk with ye then." Her final command of the morning chilled Hiccup to the core, "And remember yer place b'y, remember what ye are now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiccup is such a spirited and independent boy that I figured he would make a break for it sometime. And even after serving a physically challenging and demeaning punishment I figured that he would still have some spark in him. I've been trying to keep this thing in character, interesting, and historically accurate. The characterization and setting can be a bit difficult at times, but hopefully I'm doing a good job and you guys still like this story.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who have been leaving comments thus far, I really appreciate people who take the time to do that!


	12. The Search Continues

Astrid sat out on the wooden walkways of Berk, watching as the silhouette of a ship grew larger and larger against the horizon. The sky above flashed with lightning and poured buckets of freezing rain down on the lone girl, but she refused to return to her home until she knew if Hiccup was coming home on that ship.

It had been a fortnight since the men and women of Berk had set sail in search of Hiccup and one by one the ships had returned empty handed. Stoick's ship was the last to return and Astrid continued to cling to the hope that if anyone could find Hiccup, it would be his father.

The teens had already been out twice that week with their dragons, scouring the neighboring islands for any sign of their lost friend. They had returned the night before empty-handed. Their parents had held them back for a few days to rest and refuel, but as soon as they were allowed, she knew they would all be astride their dragons again.

Astrid let her legs dangle over the side of the walkway, swinging in the breeze. She kept her eyes fixed on the ship, smiling nervously as it made the final turn into the relatively sheltered bay. As soon as it grew close enough to warrant using the oars to steer the rest of the way, Astrid hauled herself up and ran down the winding path to the docks. The horn announcing returning ships blared through the village as she recklessly sped towards the bay.

Skidding to a halt on the dock, Astrid watched as the oarmen carefully brought the ship into the shallows. Stoick's bulk launched over the side of the ship and tied off the boat to its mooring post. He turned to the shore and Astrid watched his eyes narrow at the sight of her standing ready for news on the search. Stoick shook his head slightly and Astrid felt her face fall and her eyes well up.

Turning on her heel, Astrid fled back into the village. She passed the whispering villagers with a glare and determination not to let any tears fall.

Stoick watched her go. He heaved a great sigh as he turned to help his men unload their ship.

"No luck then?" Gobber's question startled Stoick from his thoughts.

He turned to see the blacksmith standing behind him in the shallows with a cart, "No. The other ships?"

Gobber looked down at the cart he was loading, "No."

Stoick heaved another sigh, "let's get this unloaded and then tell the village."

The men unloaded the ship quickly and trudged up to the great hall. The smell of roasting pig and fish signaled a great meal for the returning sailors. Gobber fell into stride beside Stoick as they both wound their way up to the hall. "He has to be out there somewhere, Gobber."

"Aye," Gobber agreed.

The evening meal was subdued. While the sailors were happy to be home, everyone mourned for the chief. There were very few in the village who didn't know the loss of a child or family member, and it looked to most like the chief had now lost not only his wife but also his only heir.

Stoick sat back at one of the tables with Gobber and Spitelout, brooding over his dinner. Neither of his friends said anything, instead picking at their own meals and throwing glances sideways to their chief when he wasn't looking.

"When can we send out more ships?" Stoick's question to Spitelout finally broke the silence. He had barely been back on Berk for a few hours before his mind turned to resuming the search for his boy.

Spitelout looked uncomfortably at his meal, "we need time to get together more food. Winter will be here soon and it's getting more and more essential that we have a large enough food supply to get us and the dragons through it."

Stoick snorted at Spitelout's clumsy attempt to hedge around the truth, "are ye saying we don't have the resources fer another round of ships?"

"We can send out one, maybe two, more ships before the ice sets in," Spitelout's interest was now fully captured by the lump of haddock on his plate.

Stoick sighed, "Right, when can I get going?"

"Maybe I should lead the search this time, Stoick?" Gobber offered, one meaty hand scrubbing at his moustache. "Ye've been gone for a fortnight already, Stoick. And the village is preparing for winter. Ye're needed here."

Stoick glared fiercely over his tankard, "I will not abandon my boy."

"And I'm not suggesting you do. Let me handle the next round of search ships, Stoick. Ye should stay here and lead yer people," Gobber reasoned.

"I don't know, Gobber." Replied Stoick, downing another tankard of mead. "Hiccup's everything I have left."

Gobber sighed, "I know, Stoick. And I'm not suggesting ya abandon him, but the people have started grumbling about yer absence."

"Berk needs a strong chief right now," Spitelout agreed. "Mildew and his ilk are already questioning your leadership."

Stoick glared at his tankard, feeling as if his two friends and pseudo-advisors were ganging up on him. There was no question in the chief's heart that he would only stop looking for Hiccup when his boy was brought back to Berk. Whether that was dead or alive; Stoick couldn't quite bring himself to finish that thought.

The chief looked at his two friends, sincere in their attempts to help both his son and their tribe. With a heavy sigh Stoick acquiesced, "Gobber, you're in charge of thissearch."

Neither Gobber nor Spitelout missed the Stoick's rough tone or the implication of his further involvement in the search. For now, both were just happy that their chief would spend a bit of time putting in an appearance and quelling the fears of what an absent chief could do to their tribe. As much as Gobber wanted nothing less than for Stoick to find Hiccup, he knew that political tensions in Berk could prove even more disastrous than foul weather for their search. He was disheartened that some in the village could so easily dismiss the young boy he had helped raise, but he had also lived long enough to understand why their concerns over winter preparations took precedence in their minds over the missing Hiccup.

With their negotiations done, Spitelout left Stoick to brood and went in search of more mead. Gobber stayed behind with the chief. "We'll find him Stoick, and I won't stop until we do."

Stoick sighed at his friend's reassurance. Sometimes he forgot that Gobber had helped to raise his son and cared for him nearly as much as Stoick did. "I hope you're right Gobber, I can't imagine what I'd do without him."

Two days passed before the second round of ships sailed out to resume their search. Stoick stood far above on the walkways of Berk, watching as they were lost on the horizon. He heaved a great sigh, wishing that it was him, and not Gobber, at the rudder.

"It's hard, isn't it?" Astrid's voice startled the chief. "Not being able to do anything."

He looked over his shoulder as the girl walked over to join him. Together they looked out across the sea, watching until the ships could no longer be seen. Astrid left as silently as she had come, leaving the chief to his thoughts.

Astrid would give anything to be out with Stormfly or those ships searching for Hiccup, but Spitelout had held the teens back until they finished preparing the dragon school for winter. The dragon barn was on schedule to be finished before the winter solstice and the teens were needed to help supply the new building and transition the dragons into their new home. The lack of formal training for many in the village left only a few qualified to help finish the task. Hiccup had planned to train more of the villagers in handling dragons later in the spring, Astrid only hoped that he would be there for those classes.

The girl had spent nearly every waking hour of the past two days engrossed in the preparations for winter. She threw herself into her work like she never had before. Astrid knew that she was trying to block everything out around her, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

Every day that passed brought new terror to Astrid's life. Every day made her more certain that something bad had happened to Hiccup. Thoughts of him crashed somewhere on a hostile island; awash in the sea; or, Hel forbid, dead and rotting invaded her mind constantly.

Despite these constant fears, every day Astrid would put on her mask of strength, would steel her shoulders to bear the burden of another day. She wouldn't let her friends see just how desperate she was becoming. If she gave into her fear, so would they.

"Gobber's going to find him, right?" Fishlegs asked on a daily basis as the teens helped to haul in equipment to the nearly finished dragon barn.

"Of course he's going to find him," Snotlout returned without a moment's hesitation, a confidence dripping from his tone.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut, for their part, continued to argue about everything. Astrid was almost thankful for their inane babble. At least it gave her something to focus on.

The day's work was almost done and the teens were packing up for the night. Astrid stayed behind to secure their projects and workstations so everything would be ready to go in the morning. She didn't look up or return any farewells as the rest of the Viking teens left.

"Hiccup's coming back, right?" Ruffnut asked in a small voice as she and Tuffnut left for the night. Both were oblivious that they leader still remained in the room.

Tuffnut shrugged, his shoulders sagging, "He's Hiccup." He didn't offer any other explanation and the two left in an uncharacteristic and defeated silence.

Astrid ducked behind a workbench after the two had passed. When she was sure she was alone, she sank down the wall to sit on the ground. Her arms clutched her middle in pain as she tried to hold back tears. Everything seemed to be crashing in around her. A quiet hiccup escaped her lips, the sound painfully reminding her of the boy she had lost.

Before Astrid could completely lose it, the glint of her axe caught her attention. She heaved herself to her feet and jogged over to snatch up the leather bound handle. There were still several targets up from mounted dragon combat drills and Astrid poured all of her grief and terror into them. Panting and screaming, she turned somersaults and complicated spins as she launched her axe to bite deep into the targets. Throwing had always been one of her strongest skills and the mangled targets bore the fruit of years of practice.

With a final yell, Astrid drove her axe deep into the wood round of her target, splintering the pine beyond repair. She leaned against the lodged axe, panting and regaining her composure.

"Astrid?" Stoick's voice startled the Viking teen.

Without thinking, Astrid yanked her axe out of the target and spun on Stoick with a surprised yelp. Stoick easily caught the girl's arm as the axe swung at him. Astrid's chest heaved and her eyes were wild. She struggled against the chief for a minute before his calming voice brought her back to reality.

"It's ok, Astrid." Stoick carefully reached over with his other hand and removed the axe from her lax grip. With the offending weapon tossed unceremoniously over his shoulder, Stoick released her arm. Astrid sank to her knees, a lost look replacing the fire in her eyes.

"It's ok, I'm ok," Astrid tried to assure him.

Stoick sighed and hauled the girl to her feet, "No yer not, and neither am I. We all miss him, Astrid."

Astrid nodded and sniffled. She regained her balance and scrubbed the tears off of her face. Her expression once again set back into its hardened and guarded mask.

Stoick clapped her on the back, "Come on, for a night, let's forget about being strong for the others."

Astrid looked up at Stoick in surprise as the large man led her from the dragon school and towards the Great Hall. In all of the years she had known their chief, he had never stopped being the personification of strength.

The two Vikings found a table close to the fire and ate in silence. Slowly the other villagers filed out of the hall and back towards their own houses and families. A few tossed sympathetic looks towards Astrid and Stoick, but most hurried past with lowered heads. When they were finally alone, Stoick refilled both their tankards and invited Astrid to sit beside him.

After an awkward pause, Stoick began speaking, a distant look in his eyes. "You know, even as babies you and Hiccup always fought."

Astrid looked at Stoick quizzically, but the chief was too lost in the memory to notice.

"He tried to take yer stuffed sheep once. You tackled him, took back the sheep, and beat him over the head with it until you were both crying," Stoick laughed to himself, "everyone knew ye'd been blessed by Týr to be one of his fighters."

The mead swirling around inside Astrid's tankard distracted the girl as she tried to look anywhere but at Stoick, "I loved that sheep."

Stoick smiled broadly, "and when he was six, you fell asleep and the twins convinced Hiccup to draw on your face with one of Thorlot's gooseberry pastes."

Astrid couldn't help the smile that spread across her face, "I remember that. I wouldn't talk to him for weeks." She took a moment to reflect fondly back on her earlier years, "One time Hiccup tried to impress me with one of his 'fire prevention inventions' and caught the smithy on fire."

"Did he really?" Stoick asked.

Astrid nodded, "It took him, Gobber, and I working together to put it out before it spread."

Stoick threw back his head and laughed deeply, his belly shaking in his mirth. "I never knew that," he said after regaining his composure. "Tell me more."

The night slipped by as Astrid and Stoick shared stories of Hiccup's shenanigans throughout the years. When the two parted in the wee hours of the morning, both were glad that even in the absence of Hiccup, they could draw strength and comfort from one another. Even in the midst of sadness, they could still find joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like Astrid and I identify with her a lot. She's the type of badass, capable warrior that I would love to be (except that I will always be a ranged fighter, because apparently thrown weapons is what I'm good at). Trying to write Astrid without just writing myself is difficult, so hopefully I've done her justice.


	13. The New Normal

The hills of Berk were green and shining under the rare springtime sun. Sheep grazed contentedly on the lower slopes, bleating occasionally. The returning fishing ships could be seen through the afternoon sun. A warm breeze brought the smell of Thorlot's fresh baked bread wafting through the village. Voices and laughter filled the settlement as Vikings went about their daily lives. Overhead dragons soared by as the teens of the dragon school headed out for their evening ride.

Hiccup sat on the highest hill of Berk, his father by his side. Stoick was explaining the intricacies of keeping a village running. Hiccup let him prattle on as he leaned back to watch the clouds sail by, content to listen to his father's deep voice. The sky was unduly blue that day and the clouds fluffy white pictures. Breathing in deeply through his nose, Hiccup let himself drift off to sleep to the lullaby of his father's voice.

Eyes blinked blearily open. A dirt ceiling came into focus as Hiccup rubbed his tired eyes. It took him a moment before he realized that he wasn't in his bedroom on Berk but lying on his hard bench in captivity. Hiccup's mind reeled, a dream? Had it all just been a dream?

"Hiccup?" Geirhildr's voice broke through Hiccup musings.

The boy sat up to see the other thrall standing next to his bunk. Her hair was already up in its signature double plait. Without another word she disappeared back into the main corridor. Hiccup took a moment to belt on his tunic and throw on a loose-fitting but warm skin around his shoulders. He followed Geirhildr around to another small hallway that jutted out from the main structure. There was a small door at the end of the room that led out into a small holding pen. Hiccup ducked through the door and emerged into the pre-dawn chill of the Viking north. Stars twinkled coolly in the night sky above and the boy's breaths rose in puffs. Hiccup rubbed his hands together as he pulled his skin closer.

Geirhildr sat on a small stool at the opposite side of the holding pen. A goat was tied to the post next to the girl. Hiccup watched for a minute as the thrall's hands skillfully worked the goat's udder, coaxing milk into a wooden bucket. The boy moved quickly to set up another stool and help Geirhildr finish with the milking. Hiccup's hand moved in a jerky rhythm as milk hit the sides of his bucket in staccato bursts.

Soon the milking was done and the horizon was just beginning to lighten. The first signs of movement could be heard throughout the longhouse as the rest of the thralls woke for their morning tasks. Hiccup sighed as Geirhildr disappeared back inside. His job was just beginning.

Hiccup whistled and a great fluffy beast trotted out of the house to rub against the boy's legs insistently. "That's a girl, Heiflund," Hiccup laughed as he scratched the creature behind a big, fluffy ear. The animal gave a great woof in response. Skili had told Hiccup that Heiflund's kind were called dogs. Berk had rarely seen creatures such as this great, fluffy dog and Hiccup honestly wished they were native to his islands. He had come to love and respect Heiflund very quickly and could only imagine all the possibilities that she could bring to his home.

The boy threw open the gates to the holding pen at the same time that he whistled to his dog. Goats poured quickly out of the gate, leaping away towards the hills. The two took off to the northern slopes, herding the goats out to their pastures.

It had taken Hiccup a while to adapt to his new life. Goat herding was a messy and demeaning job, but it had quickly become Hiccup's main task in a day. Although it required him to be up and gone long before the day meal, herding provided Hiccup with some solitude. Far out on the northwestern slopes of the farm he would take the goats to pasture. Milk goats and rams were rugged and well adapted to the rocky and steep inclines of their home, but Hiccup had yet to find his footing. Almost every day he returned with a new scrape or bruise.

Heiflund kept him company and Hiccup was always appreciative at how well she was trained. Together they managed to keep the herd together and out of danger. Geirhildr had taught him how to work with the dog and had been amazed by how quickly Hiccup won both the love and respect of the otherwise fierce creature. The two wandered together, navigating the steep slopes, the jutting rocks, and scrubby autumn plant growth.

Hedda had given the job of goatherd to Hiccup as a three pronged approach. The task was demeaning and dirty, relegated to the least favoured of individuals. It also kept the clumsy Viking teen out from under the feet of Hedda and the main family. Most importantly, however, the job gave Hedda added control. Hiccup had been moved into the northwest slopes, far away from the coast and the nearest road. Escape routes from the slopes either led into the inhospitable north, the steep western mountains, or southeast and into view of the longhouse. Though the opportunity to run was always there, escaping would be suicide. The pastures were treacherous for the boy and the job physically demanding. Hedda held food back, always making sure that Hiccup left the day meal hungry. If he was allowed to take a ration with him, it was severely limited and only enough to keep him on his feet. It was only when Hiccup returned to the longhouse at the end of his herding that he was given a decent meal. Every evening meal Hiccup fell on his food ravenously, cramming down as much as he could before it could be taken away. Hedda seemed to enjoy the pain of Hiccup's hunger and the bending of his will to the needs of his body.

Thoughts of food filled Hiccup's mind more so than escape nowadays. His day was no more than a grind for survival, a push to make it to the evening meal. There was little else to live for in this strange place, with these strange people. Every day brought the same landscapes and the same struggles. Every night brought with it the injuries of the day and exhaustion. He was so tired and yet he knew that as soon as he went to sleep, he would wake again to repeat the work of another day.

Though his waking world was confined with the struggle to live, the world of his dreams was filled with Berk. He dreamt of his father's voice lulling him to sleep. He dreamt of Astrid's face crinkled in laughter. He dreamt of soaring through the air on Toothless' back. Every night Hiccup would close his eyes and sail back over the sea to his home. Every morning Hiccup's eyes would open to the same dirt ceiling, the same promise of another day struggling to stay alive. The possibility of ever returning to the world he only saw in dreams now was slipping farther and farther away with each passing day. Sometimes he wasn't sure if the dreams were a blessing or a curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really suck at chapter titles. Why must they be so hard? Gah.


	14. Winter is Coming

The winter months were coming on quickly; every day the temperature grew colder and colder. The wind buffeted Hiccup mercilessly as he trudged about the northwestern slopes, his staff in hand and Heiflund at his side. At least the goats didn't seem to mind the cold so much.

When he wasn't freezing his rear end off herding, Hiccup found himself increasingly seeking the comfort of the indoors. He and Geirhildr had moved their milking into one of the smaller all-purpose halls were Heiflund and some of the geese stayed.

The thralls and the main family were quickly preparing for the winter months. When the blizzards and ice set in, much of their work would be restricted to the indoors. Skili and Snortr helped master Sigfred and his younger brother Steinrodr with making sure the last of the peat was stored, ensuring that there was enough food for the winter, and picking out the weakest animals to slaughter. Skili had explained to Hiccup that the winters were often too harsh for some of the animals too survive. So instead of the family wasting resources on the weaker animals and prolonging their suffering, a few were chosen to be slain for food and their coats. The rest were secured away with several months' worth of hay and fodder.

The day of the slaughter was filled with activity. Hiccup woke with a thrill, knowing he wouldn't have to return to the northwestern slopes for another freezing day. He and Geirhildr quickly set about milking the goats in the longhouse. Although Hiccup doubted he would ever be as good as the young thrall at milking, the daily repetition of the task had rendered his hands adept at coaxing the milk out of the goat. The warmth of the udder was always a joy in the frigid early mornings.

Hiccup used that morning's task to think. For the past moon the boy had taken to the practice of picturing his loved ones' faces. From his experience on his island in what had seemed a lifetime ago, Hiccup had learned how quickly he could forget what their faces looked like. As he milked he mentally mapped out the way his father's strong jaw could be seen beneath the layers of his beard. He mapped out the curve of Astrid's cheekbones as they spread out towards her ears. For some reason, the Viking girl was self-conscious about her ears and he delighted in trying to remember them in detail, remember why she didn't like them. He even mapped out the patterns that Toothless' scales formed between his two sensitive ears. And every morning as he drew a mental picture, Hiccup would try to remember bits and pieces of their personalities or little stories that he could tuck away at the back of his mind and cherish in his captivity. He grew increasingly depressed that it was becoming harder and harder for him to remember even the little things about his friends and family.

"Where were you from before all of this?" Geirhildr's voice broke through Hiccup's musings as they continued their milking. Her question was a surprise as the thrall very rarely spoke.

Hiccup's hands stopped their motion in shock at her question. "Berk," he answered simply. His goat bleated unhappily at the pressure of his hands tightening around its udder.

Geirhildr waited a moment for the steady rhythm of Hiccup's milking to pick back up before speaking again, "What was it like?"

"Beautiful. Our village is built on the edge of a bluff and over onto a sloping hill. It's so green in the springtime," this time Hiccup's hands didn't even pause in their task.

"My family came from a small fishing village. It wasn't more than a few shacks on a rock, but we were happy," Geirhildr offered. "I never actually saw it, I was born to this family as a thrall. But my mother used to tell me such stories about it."

Hiccup wasn't sure what to say. He honestly didn't know whether or not he wanted to even talk about the subjects of home.

"What of you?" asked Geirhildr. "Do you have any stories of your home?"

Hiccup debated with himself for a moment before sighing and bowing his head to rest on the flank of the goat he was milking. "Our food is tough and often tasteless and our people more so, but we have one thing that's always made us unique."

"Oh?" prompted Geirhildr.

"Several years ago my people befriended dragons." At Geirhildr's confused look Hiccup searched him mind for the word this people used for his dragons, "Dreki."

Geirhildr's eyes widened, "like the wyrm that gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil?"

Hiccup laughed unexpectedly at both her expression and her example, "No. Ours are more like overgrown lizards with wings. They make amazing friends and have seriously helped our village to thrive."

"Vat are ye doing in there?" Hedda's shriek interrupted Hiccup's story. "Be quick!"

The two quickly finished their task and herded the goats back outside. The rest of their day was filled with seemingly nonstop action. After a sacrifice for the winter was given to Höðr, the heavy work began.

A few bedraggled looking cattle and sheared sheep milled about in the holding pen. Hiccup felt immensely sorry for them. He was forced to help Skili herd one of the sheep up to the post where master Sigred, Steinrodr, Snortr, and Hedda were waiting. The sheep's back leg was tied tightly and the rope thrown over the top of the post. Snortr and Steinrodr quickly hoisted the sheep into the air before securing the rope to the post. Hiccup flinched and dropped his gaze when master Sigfred slit the creature's throat. Blood poured out into a waiting wooden bucket, when that was full the blood soaked the ground. After what seemed like an eternity, the bloodletting stopped. Hedda made quick work of skinning the sheep, stained up to her elbows in its gore. Skili edged away slightly from the fearsome sight their overseer made as she tried to hand him the pelt. Once the skin was off, Hedda removed the head and Snortr lowered it back to the ground. Steinrodr took it off to a low wooden bench situated nearby with butcher's tools lying next to it.

The men made quick work of disposing of the rest of the cattle and sheep. The wool sheared before the slaughter was set aside to be processed during the winter months. Hiccup helped Skili carry the fresh skins into the longhouse where they were dumped in great pots to soak.

The day stretched long into the night before the work was finally done and everything squared away. But even after the evening meal was finished the thralls had more work to accomplish. Hedda, Herbjorn, Snortr, Skili, Geirhildr, and Hiccup sat around the fire pit in the middle of the thralls' quarters. They each worked at a hide, stripping it of hair and fleshy bits. At the beginning of the day Hiccup might have been slightly revolted at the task, but after watching the slaughter the hides didn't faze him.

For a long time, silence stretched between them as they worked. After a while, Geirhildr spoke up from her bench, "tell us about Berk, Hiccup."

Hiccup startled from his task but then smiled at the offer. He hoped a story would help take his mind off of a long day of work. "Far across the sea lies Berk. It's twelve days north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death. It's located solidly on the meridian of misery. For 300 years the people of Berk fought against the dragons, the Dreki, both kinds pitted against the other in a desperate struggle for survival. Every generation the children of Berk would inherit their parents war and carry on the fighting, determined to once and for all rid the land dragons. Until one day a young boy became the first to look a dragon in the eyes and let it live. Slowly he began to change the world of Berk…"

The story stretched late into the night as the thralls worked. Most listened with rapt attention and even Hedda didn't complain. The story was nearing the end when they finally finished their work. With promises to finish the story of Berk the next day, the thralls reluctantly fell into bed.

And thus a new tradition began. Anytime some of the thralls and Hiccup were gathered together for work, Hiccup would be cajoled into telling stories about Berk. His theatrical nature slowly came back as he told more and more stories. In the space of a few days Hiccup became one of the most liked people in the longhouse. Hedda even requested a story once when Hiccup was helping her cook.

The ache for home was ever present and often made worse by the stories Hiccup told, but the boy was surprised to find that the more he told them about the dragon school and life on Berk the closer to home he felt. His story times allowed Hiccup to latch onto the memory of better times and helped him keep his sanity as storms began to lock the families away in their longhouse. And just like that, hope was rekindled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't actually read/watch Game of Thrones, but I couldn't resist the title of the chapter. I'm not very comfortable with this chapter, the change in Hiccup's attitude is a bit too abrupt for me. I wanted him to grow from a struggle to survive to finding little ways to hold onto his home and spirit even in the midst of his turmoil.
> 
> Please excuse the accidental out of order chapters, I am having a week.


	15. Winter Solstice

Stoick trod silently along the frozen ground. Snow blanketed the landscape in drifts, smothering the usually green and brown islands in a jarring white. The winter solstice was upon the village of Berk and many of the Vikings had spent days preparing for the celebration. The mood of the village had revived from the somber air after Hiccup's disappearance and was now brimming with exuberance. For Stoick, however, there was little to celebrate that year. Every day brought with it new struggles to attend to and the shrinking possibility that Hiccup would ever return to Berk.

The ice had set and the ships had been called back. It would be much too dangerous to mount a search by ship again until the spring. The teens still flew out to comb the archipelago periodically as the winter wore on, but they had turned up nothing except anxiety with the neighboring tribes. Stoick found himself increasingly tied down with the obligations of running a village and his presence during the searches had diminished.

The solstice was supposed to be a time of rebirth, to celebrate the triumph of Sol over the darkness. Stoick was afraid of what this rebirth would bring. Every day for the past week the chief had undertaken the trek out past Raven's point at the time of midday when the sun would rise for a few brief hours. Every day he prayed to the gods that the rebirth of Sol would bring with her the rebirth of his son. Even if Hiccup was forever taken from him, the man prayed that wherever his son might be, he would be able to live a happy life.

With his prayers done, Stoick returned to the village, his mask of the jovial yet firm leader in place. The solstice sun was going to rise tomorrow and the chief had a lot to do in order to get ready. The villagers were putting together the final preparations and he had to be sure everything was set. His heart wasn't in the celebration that year, but that didn't excuse him from his duty to his people. The solstice was very important to Vikings and the celebration was only one of two large celebrations in the otherwise harsh months of winter.

"Nice to see ye're back," Gobber greeted as Stoick huffed up the last hill to the village center.

"I know," Stoick answered the unvoiced reproach. "Have you seen Thorlot?"

Gobber shrugged and hefted the basket of dried fish higher onto his back. He clapped Stoick on the shoulder as he shuffled past towards the great hall. Stoic sighed and trudged along to the bakery, mentally counting up the remaining preparations to be made. After making sure the baker had everything in order for the feast the next day the chief helped rearrange the furniture in the great hall and set up the bonfire for the feast. By the time he was finished helping out and verifying that everything would be ready for the day of festivity and sacrifices, Stoick was exhausted. He had just enough energy to shovel some dinner down before trudging back to his empty house and falling into bed. It wasn't until he was tucked away in his furs that the quietness of the house fully hit him. Sometimes Stoick was surprised by how quickly he could push his son's absence to the back of his mind in favor of more immediate needs. He sighed and pulled the furs up to his chin, battling his internal guilt, grief, and need for closure one way or the other.

The morning dawned dark and frigid. It had snowed again in the night and Stoick had trouble shouldering his door open against the drift that had accumulated on the threshold. The blackness of the morning greeted him along with the jubilant shouts of Berkians as they awoke to their day of revelry.

Stoick stood on the step for a moment, his cloak pulled securely about his shoulders. He wasn't ready to face his first celebration without Hiccup. All the years he had taken for granted, assuming he would pass on long before his child. Now he wished for those chances back. He wanted to make the most of moments he had considered trivial just months earlier.

"Ready for this?" a young voice asked heavily.

Stoick looked to his side, surprised to find Astrid standing ramrod straight beside him. He snorted and strode out with purpose to celebrate with his people. Astrid followed silently in his wake, emotion banished from her features.

Gobber met them halfway to the great hall, "well aren't you two models of jubilation today." He pulled Astrid off of her feet and into an awkward bear hug, earning a squawk of indignation. A smile tugged at Stoick's lips. Gobber smiled back at his friend and let Astrid stumble from his grip, "that's better. You'll need a smile today."

The three Vikings shared a bittersweet look between each other before Ruffnut and Tuffnut careened through the group. Their faces were painted almost beyond recognition and they were yelling nonsensical phrases into Astrid's face.

"Blurgh! Come on, Astrid! We're going to miss the party." Ruffnut grabbed one of Astrid's arms and began dragging her off to where the bonfire was going to be lit.

Tuffnut grabbed her other arm, "Snotlout bet that he could drink more than me. He is totally going down!"

A protesting Astrid was hauled off to god knew where by the vocal twins, leaving a slightly bewildered Gobber and Stoick in their wake. After a moment of stunned silence, a laugh bubbled up from the chief's belly as he watched the teens leave. He remembered what it was like to be young. A sudden pang of loss spread through Stoick's chest before he heaved another side and set off again for the great hall. "For once, Gobber, the kids have the right idea. Let's celebrate what life there is."

"I could nae have said it better myself," Gobber replied, falling in step beside his friend.

The revelry lasted for the better part of two days. The sun was welcomed and worshipped with much feasting, eating, and burning of various objects. Sacrifices and prayers for the coming seasons were offered drunkenly to Sol and the gods.

The celebration was filled with both joy and sorrow. On one hand Stoick had come to celebrate the small life his Hiccup had been able to live on Berk. On the other hand, however, the loss of his child weighed heavily on Stoick's heart. One moment he was laughing as a toddling youngster wielding a burning torch ran away from his squealing mother, the fire cutting a burning path in the darkened day as he escaped. The next moment memories of Hiccup at that age assaulted Stoick. He managed to participate and lead the celebrations as was required of him, but a part of him had come to the startling conclusion that life would forever be different without Hiccup.

When the day, night, and a good portion of the next day had passed, Stoick slunk away from the party in search of solitude. He stumbled along the path, a gut full of mead and a head full of memories. After lurching around in the dark for a few minutes, the chief found his feet walking the familiar path to the dragon school. The foreboding structure loomed as an outline against the black sky. Stoick trudged inside only to stop in surprise at the voices and laughter that could be heard inside. He peaked around the corner to find Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Astrid gathered in a circle with their dragons. Tuffnut was animatedly telling a story, mead sloshing out of his tankard as he waved it emphatically about.

The man was unsure whether or not to approach the friend group until Fishlegs saw him out of the corner of his eye. The teen lumbered to his feet, "Chief!"

The rest of the group turned to him, an awkward moment passing before Ruffnut hurried over to pull him towards their group. "We're having a party for Hiccup," she explained.

Stoick was shuffled to an empty spot and forced to sit down. A snort to his left drew the chief's attention to Gobber, passed out in a drunken stupor. He should have known his best friend would be here. The next thing Stoick knew, a tankard full of honeyed mead and a lamb's leg were thrust into his hands. The group continued to talk animatedly around him about their many adventures with Hiccup. Stoic was floored by the rush of affection he had for the group of friends. While the rest of Berk had moved on from Hiccup's dissappearance, giving him up for dead, these teens still held out hope and clung to the fond memories of the boy. Even if his son was never found, this group would not let his memory fade.

Astrid plunked down next to Stoick and the sleeping Gobber. Her face was full of the emotions she never allowed herself to express in public, "You know, everyone else thinks he's dead. And I get that, death is as much a part of life as anything else. It's easier for them to put Hiccup into the category of either living or dead, it's too complicated for them to think of him as displaced or lost. They want us to mourn and move on as everyone else does. But we'll never give up hoping. We know he's out there somewhere, just waiting for us to find him or for his chance to get back to us. And if that's by the stars, then so be it."

Stoick didn't know how to reply to the girl's wisdom. Instead he stared solemnly into his tankard. The fire crackled in the background and the laughter of Hiccup's friends echoed as they celebrated his life. They were the few holdouts left to believe in the possibility of Hiccup returning. But as long as that hope was alive, so was Hiccup. Stoick fell asleep slumped against Gobber secure in that knowledge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a while since I last posted any edited chapters, apologies for the delay. I've been working on some other stories and also have been inundated at work the last few weeks. Anyways, I am still working on this story in the free time that I get so rest assured that this isn't abandoned yet. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I tried to marry the more traditional idea of the winter solstice with Stoick's grief over Hiccup's absence. It was also terrifying to try and write the Viking teens' personalities and dialogue. Also, Astrid's mention of Hiccup coming back by the stars is an allusion to death. Constellations in mythology and all of that jazz.


	16. In the Bleak Midwinter

"Is it snowing again?" asked Geirhilda from where she stood shivering amongst the milking goats.

Hiccup stood at the door to the outside world, peaking through the sliver that was actually open. "I think so. It's too dark to tell."

Geirhilda sighed. "The Jotuns are trying to bury us."

Hiccup nodded absentmindedly as he let the door blow closed behind him, the outside world once again cut off. It had been snowing for days at that point. If it kept piling up at the rate it had been, they would have to bring the goats in. Hiccup really didn't want to have to wade into that snowstorm unless he had to.

"I can't wait for spring," he mumbled as he pulled up his bucket. Goat's milk sloshed inside it, foam cresting the top. Their work seemed to stretch out longer than was natural in the cold and dark winter days. Hiccup sighed and returned to milking.

The snow continued to fall into the next day. The winds howled mercilessly around their longhouse, sounding for all the world as if it desired nothing more than to tear apart their dwelling. Peat fires were kept burning throughout the day and night and Hiccup was happy to finally be used to the stench of the peat.

Hiccup awoke to Hedda knocking about the thrall's room, "Oop! Oop wit' ye!" her accent was still cloaked heavily by sleep.

Hiccup sat up, woolen blanket bunching at his waist. Cold air assaulted his tunic clad chest and the chilled collar around his neck stung his skin. "Wha's happening?" he asked sleepily.

"Ve must bring in der animals," Hedda spoke as she wrestled on a cloak and tied woven wool around the top of her boots.

The thralls quickly rose and followed her example. Within minutes all but Herbjorn were properly bundled for the sub-freezing temperatures outside. Snortr stopped to help Herbjorn wrestle his cloak over his bent back. The thralls bunched together and stumbled through the longhouse to join the rest of the family.

Sigfred and Steinrodr led the charge as the entire household poured out into the gusting wind and freezing snow. Most animals in the north were hardy enough to spend long periods of time out in the cold, but even they surely would be lost in the drifting snow and steadily falling temperatures. The Viking farmers had waited as long as they possibly could to bring the animals in, but now it appeared that it was time to save the herd. Everywhere Vikings chased goats, sheep, and long haired cattle across the paddock. Hiccup helped Skili and Herbjorn wrestle a cow into the barn before running after his goats. Heiflund bounded after Hiccup in the knee high snow, barking wildly and barely listening to Hiccup's whistled commands in the chaos. The boy grabbed two goats and maneuvered them back to the barn. The animals gratefully retreated farther into the shelter. By now the barn was growing incredibly crowded, it was never meant to hold the farm's capacity of animals. Sigfred tried desperately to arrange the animals so they had enough room to move and wouldn't hurt each other in the confines.

A bleat caught Hiccup's attention as he was dashing out in search of more animals. A sheep had gotten caught on one of the rough fence posts. Hiccup blew an irritated sigh before working his way over to help free the creature. Just as he was about to reach out a hand to comfort the sheep, his feet disappeared out from under him as his metal leg got caught on something under the snow. Hiccup fell with a shout into the drift, snow immediately filling his world and burying him completely. The cold powder shifted into Hiccup's clothing and down his tunic, causing the boy to shiver helplessly as it came in contact with his skin. Pawing at his side eased some of the snow and Hiccup was able to roll over onto his back and sit up. Heiflund was immediately at his side, licking the boy and whining. "It's okay, girl. I'm okay. Just cold."

Hiccup managed to get the sheep free after several minutes of trial. The thing was too frightened to do much else, so Hiccup hauled it over his shoulders with waning strength and carried it off to the barn. Hedda was waiting at the door to relieve Hiccup of his burden.

Finally, the animals were stowed and the Vikings joyously retreated to the shelter and warmth of their longhouse. Wet clothing was thrown into piles and they huddled close to the fire, naked save for the furs thrown about their shoulders in an attempt to warm themselves. Alfhild, two of her daughters, and Hedda passed around mead and salted mutton. As soon as he was done eating, Hiccup fell into bed, still frozen and feeling altogether lousy. Something tickled at the back of his throat and he coughed wetly before finally managing to clear the blockage and expel a disgusting shade of yellowish mucus. Hiccup sighed and wiped his hand on the dirt floor, he was too tired to clean up after himself. He blinked at the dirt ceiling for several minutes before the exhaustion of the day washed over him and he fell headlong into sleep.

When Hiccup drifted back into the waking world, he was barely aware of his surroundings. His head was clouded and his memory shaky. Everything ached dully and no matter how far into his thin blanket he snuggled, he couldn't quite get warm. Someone was forcing a foul tasting concoction down his throat, Hiccup swallowed most of it convulsively before coughing up the last bit into spittle that dribbled down his chin.

Voices by his side jerked Hiccup awake. He hadn't even realized he had fallen asleep. A hand felt at his forehead and he leaned into the touch, "dad?"

The voices stopped abruptly at his question. "Dad?" Hiccup asked again.

"Go back to sleep, Hiccup," a female voice answered him.

"Astrid?" Hiccup was confused. Why would Astrid be visiting him when he was sick? Where was his father? Why wasn't Toothless there. "Where's Toothless?"

"Svefn, Hiccup. Ye vill be b'tter vith rest," a matronly voice assured him. The world began to dim.

When Hiccup next regained consciousness, he was acutely aware of the sticky moisture soaking his furs. The sensation bothered him but he didn't have the energy to get up and replace the bench covering. A dirt wall rose in front of his face and Hiccup sighed as he tried to free the arm wedged beneath his body. This was unlike the sniffles or occasional fever Hiccup got at home. This was an illness that wracked his whole body, leaving him weak and bone weary. He could feel his pulse fluttering irregularly in his ears as his heart tried desperately to keep his system circulating.

"Hiccup?" Snortr's voice called.

Hiccup groaned and rolled over onto his back, the little movement leaving him drained and panting lightly. Snortr stood next to his bed, hands clenching nervously in front of him.

"How are you feeling?" the boy asked.

Hiccup opened his mouth to respond, but was alarmed when all that he managed to produce was a harsh whistling sound. Snortr hurriedly disappeared from his side and reappeared a moment later, a horn of water in his hands. He helped Hiccup take a few sips. The teen cleared his throat and tried again, "tir'd."

Snortr smiled slightly, "That is not surprising. You took ill after the storm two days ago."

"That long?" Hiccup asked, his eyes already drifting closed.

"Aye," Snortr answered. "I will fetch Hedda."

The young boy turned to get their overseer, but Hiccup had already drifted off again. His dreams were filled with black dragons and soaring in the skies above Berk.

Hiccup awoke once more, feeling markedly better than his last attempt at consciousness. His limbs ached and he smelled of urine and sweat, but his fever appeared to be gone. He negotiated his still asleep limbs to support him and managed to lever himself up into a sitting position. A horn of water hung on the post next to Hiccup's bench and the boy greedily drank it down. His arms and legs tingled unpleasantly as blood flowed unhampered through his limbs.

Geirhilda sat next to the fire-pit of the room, grinding wheat in the warmth of the crackling wood. Hedda sat next to her, a pile of carded wool sitting beside her. And next to Hedda sat Skili, a half completed bowl in one hand and a whittling knife in the other.

"Hiccup!" Geirhilda was the first to see him awake. "Are you better?"

"I think so," the teen replied as he stretched. It felt good to arch his aching back muscles and work the stiffness out of his shoulders.

"'boot time yer lazy bones got oop," Hedda chortled at the teen. Hiccup scowled comically in her direction.

At that moment mistress Alfhild stooped into their room, a basket of wool in hand. She spoke quietly to Hedda before gathering the carded wool. She turned to Hiccup on the way out, kindness in her prematurely wrinkled eyes, "it has stopped snowing."

"Praise the gods!" Hedda answered with a whistle. Alfhild smiled at her before leaving.

Hiccup was slightly taken aback, though he constantly worked around master Sifgred's family, he rarely spoke with them. A kind word from any of them was indeed a strange occurrence.

"She likes you," Geirhilda answered his astonishment. "It's your stories. Everyone likes them. They hadn't realized how much they loved them until it looked like you wouldn't get tell them again."

"Maybe I should get sick more often," Hiccup feebly joked. The corner of Skili's mouth twitched up into a smile.

"Ye are back to verk on die morgen, b'y," Hedda replied gruffly, carders scratching against each other as she processed the wool Alfhild had left her with.

"Oh joy," in the midst of everything, Hiccup was glad he kept his sarcasm. He managed to sit up for the evening meal before his bench called to him again. He was surprised to find a new fur on his sleeping place and slipped onto the scratchy cover gratefully. Sleep came easy to the weary teen and soon he had drifted off. This time he dreamed of stories told by firelight and weathered faces creased in laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT UPDATE: Hiccup revisits a smithy and learns a lesson in minding his place.


	17. The Cruel Master

Hiccup had fully recovered from his bout of illness and was once again back into the routine of daily life at the farm. The goats always needed to be milked and now that the snow had let up, the animals could be let outside again. Hiccup spent frigid mornings minding goats as they managed to dig up roots from the frozen ground.

The midwinter Thurseblut celebration had come and gone and spring was finally on the horizon as Thor worked to expel the Jotuns from the north. The departure of the frost giants seemed to perk up the whole farm as the days grew longer and the snowstorms fewer. There would still be many more weeks of winter, but the Spring Equinox and the celebration of Ostara the goddess of spring would finally break up the monotony of darkness and snow. Soon they would start hoarding the goose eggs to dye and paint with berries.

As Hiccup helped to keep his part of the farm running and began the planning for the spring, he couldn't help but marvel that he had almost passed two seasons in captivity. It seemed like he had spent years in these strange northern lands, working for naught.

Hiccup watched from his perch as Herbjorn and Skili shoveled manure out of the still crowded stable and into barrels to be stored inside. Hiccup remembered his father teaching him how to gather sheep droppings and store them so that the manure could be used for the sowing of hay when the ground was no longer frozen. For once, Hiccup was glad herding goats kept him busy. Shoveling manure did not look like a fun task. Plus, his tunic already stank of peat and wet goat.

"B'y!" Hedda's shrill shout broke through Hiccup's thoughts. Heiflund whined as the shout echoed about the farm.

The teen looked down to find Hedda in the paddocks, looking up at him insistently. He quickly stood to greet her, leaning heavily on his crook. "Yeah?"

"G't doon hier!" yelled Hedda.

Hiccup sighed and clambered down from his rocky hill. As soon as he was on the ground in front of Hedda the stout woman grabbed his arm and started leading him off, "Steinrodr needs yer help doon at the smithy."

She propelled Hiccup around to the path that led from the longhouse into the nearby collection of houses and shops. It really wasn't large enough to qualify as a village considering all of five families lived in the area, but it still provided a bit of the town center feel.

"Why me?" Hiccup asked, astounded. He had never been trusted before to travel anywhere near the roads after his ill-fated escape attempt.

"Ye can be replaced," Hedda offered. "Shoo noow."

Hiccup was shoved down towards the town center. He hurried off, his crook still dangling from one hand. As he went, he absently munched on his day meal. After two seasons on the job, the teen had learned to always eat when he had the chance. He never knew when that chance, or his food, would be taken away.

Within fifteen minutes of walking, Hiccup crested the hill that overlooked the shops. Five ramshackle stone and peat buildings huddled together against the wind. That was all that made up the village center. Three more outlying farms lay within several miles of these shops, or at least so Hiccup had been told. The buildings weren't really a town, but the families quickly figured out that it was better to pool their resources and provide labour for each other rather than trying do it all for themselves or making the half day's wagon ride into the major trading town and port.

The smithy stood out easily as acrid smoke billowed from a stone lined stack. The building, for sake of flammability, was set off a small ways from the others and made completely of stone. Hiccup was glad for it; he and Gobber had nearly set their own wooden smithy on fire several times. Hiccup smiled a moment at the fond memory before a pang of longing stole his smile.

Snortr looked up in relief as Hiccup entered. He quickly handed over his rawhide apron and dusted blackened hands off on his trousers. "Steinrodr needs errands run while his son is out of town," the young thrall explained.

Hiccup accepted the offered apron and tied it with expert hands. Though it had been two seasons since Hiccup had donned the smithy's apron, his dexterous fingers still remembered the knot. "Gotcha," he replied absently, already surveying the small space to see what he would be working with.

Snortr leaned in closer and lowered his voice, "Roduulf is away, be careful." With that the thrall quickly exited back into the cold and lazily falling snow.

Hiccup squared his shoulders and looked around for Steinrodr. The burly Viking was bent over the forge, a pair of tongs in his hands. He was focused solely on the metal melting in the cup he held in the fire. Hiccup came up behind him careful to give him distance and not to disturb the man. Steinrodr was the younger brother of Sigfred and had a legendary temper among the thralls. The man's wife was long dead and such his only child, Roduulf, had become his world. The young man and Sigfred were the only ones who could placate Steinrodr's wrath. Currently Roduulf had taken the family wagon and horses into town to trade their ironwork for supplies and with Steinrodr's son gone for at least two days, the thralls had been assigned to work with the volatile blacksmith.

"Boy!" Steinrodr hollered as he withdrew the melted iron from the furnace, "go fetch more water."

Hiccup dashed for the yoke and buckets leaning haphazardly up against the doorway. He quickly ran for the spring that flowed by the road. Wells were expensive and labour-intensive to make, plus they had a habit of freezing over in the winter. Running water took longer to freeze over completely and was much preferred by the farmers in the north. Hiccup quickly filled his buckets and hooked them onto the yoke before hoisting the wooden beam over his shoulders. He staggered back as fast as he dared to the forge and set the frigid water down beside the forge. It would take a few minutes before they were warm enough to use. He waited for them to warm up and then transferred them to the cooling basin for the forge.

Steinrodr looked over in mild approval as Hiccup threw his full weight on the bellows, keeping the fires of the forge burning bright. With a snarl and a few glances, Steinrodr directed Hiccup's attention to the peat stacks on one side of the forge. Hiccup threw a few logs on before resuming his task of stoking the fires.

The day went smoothly once Hiccup began to get back into the rhythm of smithing. Steinrodr's style and tempo of work was different than Gobber's and Hiccup would often have to check himself from moving into the next task before Steinrodr was ready. The transition back into skilled labour was a joy for Hiccup. He had missed the challenge to his mind as he worked quickly alongside an artisan, anticipating their needs and making sure everything was properly supplied and running smoothly. It sure beat having to herd goats, even if working with a herd dog took skill and sound strategy. Heiflund was a wonderful companion as far as a dog could be, but Hiccup had missed working with his hands. He had missed creating things.

The day came and went quickly and soon Steinrodr called a halt to the day's activities. Carefully they packed up shop and killed the forge before leaving. The trek back to the longhouse was passed in uneasy silence. Hiccup didn't want to say anything out of place to Steinrodr and contented himself with jogging to keep up with the man's long strides. When they finally reached the longhouse, Steinrodr and Hiccup plunked down to enjoy the evening meal with the rest of the house.

Hiccup went to bed that night with a full belly and a relaxed mind. His mind could not remember the dreams of the night. The teen was shaken awake slightly later than normal by Geirhilda and handed a bag of food. "Steinrodr wants you working with him until Roduulf is back. You need to go get everything ready for him."

Hiccup took the food and explanation thankfully. Within minutes he was bundled for the early morning freeze and off to the smithy. The forge was warmer inside even with the dead fire. He basked in the change of temperatures from the subzero outdoors before quickly setting about getting everything ready. By the time Steinrodr showed up, the boy had the fire glowing and the day's tools set out. Hiccup would leave it up to his master how much he wanted the forge stoked.

Hiccup knelt by the hearth, carefully brushing away the soot of the previous day. Steinrodr looked over his shoulder with approval at the neat job. For a moment, Hiccup allowed himself to bask in the rare favour of the ill-tempered Viking.

The next two days passed quickly for Hiccup. Every day he rose early and set up the smithy for Steinrodr. Every day he stood at the man's beck and call as they worked quietly together. Hiccup hoped that if he continued to prove his worth, maybe, just maybe, Steinrodr or Roduulf would take him with on their next journey into town. And if they did, maybe Hiccup could finally find his chance to escape.

Hiccup managed to keep everything running smoothly until the fourth day in. It was an innocent action that got him in trouble. The teen had been bustling around keeping things clean and running when he noticed Steinrodr's attention absorbed in shaping a plough arm on the anvil. Normally Hiccup wouldn't have been phased by his master's absorption in his task, but Steinrodr also had several soft rivets he had just finished forming that desperately needed to be cooled. Steinrodr had a plough that needed to be fixed, but attaching the iron blades to the wooden frame needed cool rivets. The soft pieces of metal needed to be fully quenched before they could be used for the cold riveting needed to repair the plough.

Hiccup cleared his throat in an attempt to get Steinrodr's attention. If the man didn't drop the metal pieces in a cooling basin immediately, they would be too soft to adequately hold the plough together. "Master?" Hiccup prompted.

Steinrodr didn't even look up, eyes focused on the iron arm he was meticulously shaping. Hiccup shrugged and transferred the rivets over a workboard. He dropped the bits of metal in, watching in satisfaction as the pieces were quenched properly. After a minute Hiccup retrieved the quenched rivets and transferred them back onto the small workboard.

"What are you doing, boy?!" Steinrodr demanded as Hiccup turned around with the cooled pieces. The older Viking's eyes widened almost comically in anger as the boy's handiwork became visible.

Hiccup's eyes shot down to the floor in shock at the reproach. He held up the pieces he had worked as an explanation, "they needed to be quenched, I didn't want you to have to reheat them."

"How dare ye!" Steinrodr breathed quietly in rage. "Do ye take me fer a fool, boy? Do ye have no respect?"

Hiccup backed away uncertainly, his hands numbly allowing the workboard to slip through his fingers. The board clattered to the ground as the rivets bounced away. Steinrodr's gaze was murderous as the boy cowered back against the cooling basin. The hand that was holding the hot iron raised above Steinrodr's head and Hiccup had a sudden premonition of dread at what was about this happen. The teen jerked to the side as Steinrodr brought the dark red heated metal down. Even with Hiccup's quick reflexes the metal caught him on his shoulder blade, searing into his skin. For a moment Hiccup could feel blazing heat as the rod was held to his back, then Steinrodr gave a surprised shout and the rod clattered to the ground. As Hiccup collapsed to the floor, he watched Steinrodr's eyes widen in horror before the burly man fled the forge. Hiccup was left curled on the floor of the forge. His back hurt and the stench of burnt flesh filled his nostrils, but Hiccup was surprised by how little pain he felt.

Hiccup crawled to the door of the forge, his right arm dangling uselessly as his shoulder refused to move. With some struggling, he managed to haul himself to his knees and push the door open. Immediately the cold of the outdoor world assaulted him and Hiccup collapsed forward thankfully. His right shoulder jarred as the boy hit the ground and Hiccup screamed. His whole back lit up in fiery pain and the boy writhed in the throes of agony. Hiccup couldn't believe how much the burn hurt, how it seemed to consume his whole being. The teen's body was no longer under his control and his mind begged for release. The world tunneled alarmingly in front of his eyes before shutting off completely. He was left lying limply in the doorway of the forge, his back lightly steaming in the frigid temperatures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wondering, Steinrodr's action is so severe on two accounts. First his bloody temper is easily set off and second, Hiccup performing a task that needs the skilled eye of a trained smith was an affront to Steinrodr's authority and skill as a smith both of which would have been viewed as highly disrespectful.


	18. No Stone Unturned

The biting wind of midwinter chafed and numbed Astrid's face as she soared through the air. Clouds hung heavy against the sky, forcing her to fly low. Snotlout and Fishlegs flanked her on either side. The twins brought up the rear, blessedly silent after taking the full force of Astrid's explosive temper not even 15 minutes prior. The search for Hiccup already had her on edge, she couldn't deal with the twins' constant bickering on top of that.

After Berk had settled in for the winter, the teens had started the search again. They scoured farther and farther out until all of the Barbaric archipelago had been covered. Now they were in uncharted territory. Their small team of dragons cut across the open ocean, wary of the frigid water below them and the threat of rain above.

"Oh! Astrid! Assstttrriidd!" Ruffnut called out in the sing-song voice that frazzled Astrid's nerves.

Astrid internally counted to ten before barking back, "What!"

"I see land!" Ruffnut shouted.

Astrid turned in the saddle to see Ruffnut pointing off to the northeast. There was indeed a dark and wide smudge on the horizon. Astrid heaved a sigh of relief, they had been flying over open ocean for too long, it unsettled her Viking blood. "Fishlegs, distance?" demanded the girl.

"I'd say about half an hour at this pace," Fishlegs held up a metal and stone instrument, using it to help his estimate. He looked up from his task to Astrid's determined look. "I wouldn't push the speed. We don't know if anyone lives there. Mom'll kill me if I come home with arrow holes in my cloak again."

Astrid rolled her eyes, but eased up slightly on Stormfly. They would take this slow. "Alright, we have a day to search this island and make it back to Berk. Make this count."

"Aye, Aye Astrid," the twins replied in unison. Astrid's shoulders squared in annoyance and the two snickered uncontrollably.

They had been searching for months for Hiccup now. Every island east of Berk had been scoured and no sign of Hiccup had been found. The teens even had to fight off natives at one point. Many of the adults back on Berk were growing continually uneasy about their search missions as the winter wore on. So many resources were expended flying the dragons for days on end, and the harvest hadn't been good that year. But Astrid couldn't let them stop her, wouldn't call of the search until she had gone everywhere in the Viking world. And so the teens had struck out for uncharted lands, with only Gobber who knew where they were heading.

The land grew steadily larger until the teens could make out the rocky beech. Astrid signaled to land and the four dragons coasted in as quietly as possible. The pebbles of the beach were slippery under foot, the few jagged edges threatening to poke through the toughened leather of the teens' boots.

The small group led their dragons over to a patch of tall evergreen trees. On island chains which relied primarily on peat and coal for fuel, trees were still fairly common. While the particular patch was sparse, it allowed cover for the teens and their dragons.

"Ruffnut!" Astrid demanded, interrupting the girl's pursuit of a puffin.

The girl lurched upright, shoulders hunched forward and a crooked smile fixed to her face, "Wha?"

"Take Snotlout and scout ahead. And for Thor's sake, be quiet!" Astrid ordered, trusting that the pairing would be fairly stealthy.

Ruffnut threw a mock salute. "Aye, aye, Astriddddd," the syllable was pulled out annoyingly long and the laughter that followed was slightly crazed. For the umpteenth time since their childhood Astrid wondered if the twins had been dropped on their heads a few too many times.

"After you, princess," Snotlout smiled sweetly, offering Ruffnut the point position.

Ruffnut snorted in derision and rolled her eyes. "Your face is stupid," she drawled as she hurried by, smacking Snotlout in the gut for good measure. The winded Viking teen followed close on her heels, nearly bent double.

"Ahhhh, why did you have'ta send them?" Tuffnut pouted, his figure slouching dramatically as his sister stomped off.

"Because you're too loud and Fishlegs gets distracted," Astrid responded seriously. In the background, Fishlegs spluttered indignantly. Tuffnut rolled his eyes at the large Viking.

The teens waited in semi-silence for the return of the scouting party. Fishlegs and Tuffnut squabbled over the food they had packed, trading fish, smoked meat, and bread until both had built monstrous sandwiches.

"Astrid!" Ruffnut's scream pierced the afternoon air. The teens were on their feet with weapons in their hands before the cry had finished echoing across the abandoned beach. Astrid, Tuffnut, and Fishlegs charged to the edge of the woods, just in time to see Ruffnut charging over a grassy hill, Snotlout hot on her heels. As the teens crested the hill and began the scramble back to the woods, a small force of Viking villagers chased after them with everything from axes and swords to pitchforks and stone mallets.

"Odin owns you all!" a great cry arose from the Viking villagers before a spear flew just over Astrid's head.

Tuffnut yanked it out of the tree it had lodged in and threw it back, "Whad'd we ever do to them?"

Ruffnut and Snotlout burst into the small group, panting and bleeding. Seeing their injured companions, the rest of the Viking teens and dragons closed rank around them. They edged back into the cover of the woods as the angry villagers drew nearer.

"Whatd'd you do to them?" Tuffnut growled at his sister.

"It's not my fault they hate dragons!" Ruffnut yelled back, limping on a bleeding leg.

"Snotlout! What happened?" Astrid demanded as the group made a break for the beach. They needed to get into an open space away from villagers with spears if they were going to take to the skies.

Snotlout panted and clutched his shield hand to his chest as they ran, "They saw us come in on the dragons. Didn't even get close to the village before they attacked."

Astrid snarled at their luck and pushed herself faster, throwing glances over her shoulder as the angry mob of villagers pursued them through the trees. "Tuffnut, take Ruffnut."

Tuffnut nodded, breaking off to the left with his sister's arm slung around his shoulder. The two limped off a short distance with Barf and Belch. The teens might be annoying, but they weren't stupid. They knew that a large group was an even larger target.

"Snotlout, be careful steering with that hand," Astrid advised as the Viking teen broke right following the path of his Montrous Nightmare as the dragon stuggled to weave quickly through the trees.

"Fishlegs, lead the way back to Berk. I'll take up the rear," Astrid ordered as Fishlegs panted behind her.

Finally the beach opened up in front of them and the teens eagerly clambered aboard their dragons. Fishlegs took off quickly with Snotlout shortly behind him. Astrid stayed behind to help Tuffut get Ruffnut on Barf and tie her down to keep her from falling off. Astrid launched herself off of the Zippleback as it took off and landed on Stormfly's waiting back.

"Spawn of Loki!" one of the villagers cried as the front runners broke through the trees and onto the beach.

"Does it look like I have eight legs?!" Astrid demanded as she swung her legs into the saddle and Stormfly obediently kicked off. With a flick of the dragon's tail, spikes went flying into the pursuing Vikings, raising cries of pain of anger. They were nearly 50 feet in the air when something slammed into the back of Astrid's leg, just above her boot. For a split second, Astrid didn't feel anything except the thrill of adrenaline rushing through her system, and then Stormfly's wing surged upward for another flap.

"Son of a half troll!" Astrid screamed out in pain as her dragon simultaneously roared in agony. Falling forward and clinging to Stormfly's neck, Astrid peeked over the side of the dragon. In the distance, Astrid could vaguely see the beach and the small figures still hurling weapons at the retreating figures of the dragon riders. However, it was the arrow piercing her leg and pinning it to Stormfly's wing joint that absorbed most of the Viking teen's attention. Blood flew out from rider and dragon as Stormfly painfully tried to stay in the air. Every movement of the wing joint in flight nauseously jostled the arrow, creating a larger hole in Astrid's leg as the shaft continually shifted. The weight of Astrid's leg paired with the shifting of the joint drove the point further into the dragon. Feeling faint, Astrid looked away and heaved her breakfast of fish onto Stormfly's flank.

"I need some help!" Astrid yelled to her fellow riders as she wiped vomit off on her gauntlets, hoping one of them would notice the predicament she and Stormfly were in. When no one immediately came to their aid, Astrid struggled back into a sitting position and looked over the top of Stormfly's head. The other riders were far ahead now and not slowing down. They likely hadn't even realized she was missing and injured yet.

For several minutes, Astrid and Stormfly valiantly struggled to stay in the air, but the pain was excruciating. As soon as land became visible on the horizon, Stormfly locked her wings and glided in large, wobbly circles towards the it. As the brown hills came into view, Stormfly's body tensed in preparation before the dragon touched down in an awkward run. Astrid cried out in pain as the wound was jostled badly. The dragon's momentum finally died and Stormfly came to a stop, immediately tucking in her non-injured wing. For several minutes the dragon crouched on the slope of the hill they had landed on as Astrid tried her hardest not to pass out. Every muscle in her body screamed for release, but Astrid knew she had to get her leg unpinned from Stormfly's wing.

With a stifled cry, Astrid crouched over her injured leg. She fumbled around her back before finding the knife she kept strapped to her belt. Extracting the blade from its sheath, Astrid shakily brought it down to feel around the wing joint. After several moments of poking around, Astrid found where the shaft left her leg and bit into Stormfly's scales. Her hand slick with her own blood, Astrid kept a firm grip on her knife. Forcing her hand not to shake, she carefully looped the blade under the shaft. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Astrid began sawing at the shaft. The cedar spine was strong and the knife continually slipped on the slick blood that coated the shaft. Astrid growled in frustration and pain, wishing she had a serrated wood saw instead of her knife. After what felt like years, the knife splintered the last of the shaft and Astrid was able to pull her leg away.

Now she could clearly see where an obsidian arrow head was buried in Stormfly's wing joint and how the arrow had pierced her own leg. Several inches of shaft and distinctive striped fletching stuck out of the back of her calf. The other side of her leg bore a little over two inches of cut shaft that stuck out diagonally from the flesh next to her shin and slightly below her knee.

"This is going to hurt," Astrid grumbled to herself as she maneuvered her body over the dragon's flank to slide down to the ground. Her good leg touched down as lightly as possible, but her knee went weak almost immediately and the girl fell to her rump on the hillside. The arrow still in her leg was jostled nauseatingly.

Astrid lay panting in the bracken for several minutes before the concerned nudge of Stormfly's snout brought her back to the present. She struggled into a sitting position and blindly felt along her dragon's flank until she found the stowage compartment on her saddle. Astrid quickly extracted her healer's kit and rummaged around for bandages and a discoloured paste. Kindling and flint soon followed the healing kit.

Stormfly watched on as her rider lit a small fire and heated her knife up until it glowed menacingly in the twilight. Astrid clumsily slipped her belt out of her skirt. She folded the leather in half and looked up when her dragon cooed worriedly.

"Well, here goes nothing, Stormfly. Odin help me!" determination glinted in Astrid's blue eyes. The teen bit down hard on the folded leather belt and grasped the arrow shaft firmly below the fletching. Slowly, she dragged the shaft out of her leg, blood leaking out and soaking into the lining of her boot. Panting in pain and exertion, Astrid flung the offending arrow away into the forest. Without giving herself a second to think about it Astrid brought the hot knife down on the entrance wound. Searing pain flashed over her already jangled nerves and Astrid screamed around the belt. Normally another Viking or a healer would cauterize a wound, but Astrid was alone and bleeding. She just had to grin and bear it.

Shaking hands nearly dropped the knife as she brought it away from the wound to repeat the process on the exit wound. This time, however, Astrid couldn't manage to hold the knife to her skin and the cooling blade slipped from her fingers into the dirt. Tears streamed unbidden down the teen's face as she carefully smeared the burn cream over her injuries and then clumsily bandaged her leg. Her task done, Astrid lay back in the dirt and cried.

The clouds in the sky above her twisted and sailed as they were lit up by the setting sun. They taunted her with their ability to fly. A whine brought Astrid out of her pain filled haze. Stormfly crouched next to the Viking girl, her injured wing still outstretched.

Astrid held the dragon's head in her hands for a few minutes, drawing comfort from her animal's presence. "Right, let's get you fixed up," she murmured when the obsidian arrowhead glinted in the firelight and caught her attention. She had almost forgotten that Stormfly was hurt as well.

Working the arrowhead out of the scales was more difficult then Astrid originally had anticipated. She had to work the blade side-to-side to extract it from the hide and scales, cutting into Stormfly's flesh in the process. The dragon remained stoic throughout the process, only letting her tense body relax when her rider finally bandaged the joint.

With nothing left and no clue if the other teens would return for her, Astrid collected some firewood from a nearby cluster of pine trees and lit a beacon fire with some oil she carried around for emergencies. Thoroughly exhausted and in incredible pain, the girl fell asleep next to the roaring and crackling fire.

"She's over here!" a voice above Astrid called. The girl cracked her eyes open to see several dragons landing next to an enthusiastic Stormfly. She rolled over onto her side to greet the riders, but pain burst in fireworks across her vision.

The next thing Astrid was aware of was the wind whipping across her face and toying with her hair. She smiled groggily; she was flying, take that clouds.

The world came back to Astrid in a swirling mass of diluted colours before bursting into unfocused chaos. There was movement all around her and the twittering of tiny dragons. Warm skins nearly suffocated the teen as they pressed in around her form. Her head swam as Astrid sat up.

Two terrible terrors were curled up by her feet and another two played next to her bedside as Gothi bent over her leg. Astrid blinked owlishly at the village elder before clearing her throat. Gothi waved a dismissive hand at the teen before shoving a foul smelling concoction into her hands. Astrid obediently swallowed it down, cringing at the taste but knowing that it would take the edge off of her pain. She lay back down on the bed with a sigh, nestling back into the furs.

When she woke up for the second time, Gothi and her dragons were gone. The room was quiet except for the sounds of someone rustling the fire. Astrid sat up to see the hunched form of Stoick the Vast.

"Chief?" the girl asked, clearing her throat at the rough sound of her voice.

Stoick straightened quickly at the sound, smacking his head into the mantle as he stood. Rubbing ruefully at the top of his head, the chief turned to face Astrid, "It's good to see ye're up."

"What happened?" the Viking teen questioned, surveying her expertly bandaged and numb leg.

"Ye went down over Glum bay after yer party was attacked," Stoick answered.

Memories of a desperate flight and the agony of treating her wound flooded Astrid's hazy memory. She swallowed convulsively around the bile that suddenly rose in her throat before accepting the horn of water that Stoick offered her.

"Yer lucky Ruffnut saw ye go down. We had no clue where ta look fer ye," Stoick explained as he ran his hands through his hair, still fingering where he hit his head. "I miss him to, Astrid, ye know I do. But ye can't go and get yerself killed looking for him."

Astrid opened her mouth to protest, but Stoick cut her off before so much as a sound could escape, "the village has decided that ye can't keep searching fer Hiccup." He looked away from the girl as he said this, the pain in his eyes shielded by the shadows the fire threw about the room.

"But Stoick! We can't just – " Astrid's protest had barely begun before Stoick held up a hand to silence her.

"Astrid, I have no choice. I'm grounding ye and the other teens, at least until yer injuries heal," the chief's shoulder hunched forward in grief and he swept from the room before Astrid could protest.

The teen watched her chief's back as he squeezed himself through Gothi's doorway and left the elder's house. Disbelief and grief swirled in Astrid's stomach as she processed what he had told her. She glared murderously at her injured leg before flopping back onto the bed. She watched the shadows dance across the wood ceiling before determination once again steeled her heart. Stoick had said she was grounded until she healed, she'd just have to be sure she healed fast. Hiccup was counting on her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I apologize for Ruffnut and Tuffnut's characters. I just cannot seem to figure their characterization out!
> 
> The battle cry "Odin owns you all" derives from Norse mythology, however, the only sources I could find that detail this as an authentic Viking battle cry all date from the Victorian era (mostly during the Viking revival) or later so they aren't the most reliable sources. Also, many of Loki's children have a role in Ragnarök, so being perceived as the spawn of Loki is somewhat of a Norse religious slur or a belief that a particular creature was a sign of the end of the world. Also, the dragon Nidhogg, who gnaws at the roots of the great world tree Yggdrasil, is seen as the worst of the worst by Norse mythology. Makes sense why a village who doesn't normally encounter dragons would be very upset by a group of them descending on their island.
> 
> Bonus points to whoever recognizes my not very subtle eight legs reference. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the new chapter and I'll try to have the next one out soon so you lot will finally know what happened to Hiccup.


	19. Insult and Injury

The world was shaking when Hiccup came back to himself. He vaguely registered the lumpy ground beneath his feet as his legs struggled to keep moving. There was an iron grip on his biceps. Hiccup didn't have the strength to lift his head and see who was dragging him along. Instead he focused his entire energy on the sluggish and clumsy movement of his legs. Neither one wanted to respond to his hazy mind as they wobbled horribly, like the legs of a newborn calf. Every step sent a jolt of pain reverberating through his body. Nausea roiled in his stomach. Hiccup swallowed convulsively, but the next moment bile was burning its way up his throat and out of his mouth. His knees went weak as he retched miserably. The hands on his biceps were the only things to keep him from pitching forward into the steaming pile of his own sick. Hiccup's head tipped back to look up at the sky as vomit dribbled down his chin. The young viking wobbled beneath the night sky, allowing whoever held his biceps to bear most of his weight. The stars slowly disappeared, fading into blackness until Hiccup's world went dark.

Consciousness eluded Hiccup as he swam in a world of muted colors and garbled sounds. Sparks of pain were the only thing to assure him that, yes, he was indeed still alive. Shapes moved across his vision, but the only response Hiccup could ever muster was incoherent groans and grunts. His head was full of wool and his stomach a gnawing hole of hunger and the acidic bite of bile. Periods of darkness and oblivion interspersed these drunken moments of incoherence, but there were not frequent enough to save Hiccup from his pain.

When the boy finally came back to himself, he was face down on his pallet. His noise was smashed awkwardly into his furs and a wet cloth lay by his head. Soft voices were murmuring overhead.

"Dad?" Hiccup asked. He tried to move his head to see who was speaking. The movement shifted the muscles in his shoulder and Hiccup cried out as pain seared its way down his spine and across his shoulder blades. Hands reached out to stabilize him as another set fidgeted with a compress that Hiccup had not realized was covering the majority of his scrawny shoulders and a good portion of his back.

"Shh, svefn, Hiccup. Ye better am die morgen," Hedda's voice was thick and gruff, the gentle tone of her voice transforming back into the commanding voice of the overseer as he continued to cry out in pain.

After his muscles finished their spasms, Hiccup was hauled into strong arms. His head lolled weakly as he was hoisted into a semi-setting position and his good shoulder was braced against a broad chest. A horn was tipped against his lips. Strong mead flowed into the boy's mouth. Startled by the bitter liquid, Hiccup choked and spluttered weakly for a minute before the horn was tipped again and his throat swallowed convulsively. With a good portion of the horn finished, the boy was lowered back onto his bench, mind spinning and a disorientating tiredness flooding his body. Master Sigfred leaned over him once he was fully settled back. Too tired to even acknowledge the presence of the family head, Hiccup's mind faded into a haze. Voices sent him off. Hiccup dreamed of Valkyries.

The first sensation to return was the itch on his upper lip. Hiccup scrunched his nose in annoyance, trying to relieve the itch. His face was pressed into a rough cloth of some type. Carefully, he peeled his crusty eyes open to a blurred world. Blinking several times, Hiccup was finally able to clear the haze from his vision. Bare dirt and stone walls greeted him. The boy began to relax when he realized that he was back on his bench and no longer at the cursed smithy.

Hiccup shuffled around on his stomach, trying to get comfortable on the wooden bench. His shoulder was blissfully numb, but a dull ache still pervaded his sore muscles. His limbs felt like great stone weights as they refused to cooperate with his limited movements.

"Shh, Hiccup," Skili soothed in his scratchy voice. "Lie still, ye are still wounded."

Hiccup had not realized the boy was even there until he had spoken. There was a strange ringing in his ears.

"Careful now," Skili murmured more to himself as he levered his fellow thrall up and braced him.

Hiccup was directed to relieve himself in a waiting bucket, which he did with a strained "ahh." The act was both torturous and calming. It took a minute of awkward fumbling for Hiccup to manage the ties of his rough spun and well-worn trousers, but the relief on his over-full bladder was as heavenly a comfort as Hiccup could ask for in his present situation.

Once he was done, Hiccup hurried to stuff himself back into his trousers, the cold biting. This time, all his hands managed to do was tangle the ties. He growled in frustration.

Skili swooped in before Hiccup's frustration and pent up anxiety could explode, deftly lacing the trousers with a single hand. "It's okay, I got this. Don't worry."

Hiccup barely felt embarrassment as Skili fixed his ties for him and bundled him back onto his bench. Hiccup surrendered himself to the care of the other boy as his world grew hazy once more. He dreamed of pain and the struggle of life. Even in sleep, his collar was an uncomfortable weight around his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason I'm not focusing on the medical side as heavily is because there really aren't any reliable sources for Viking medical practices. From evidence in Snorri Sturluson's _Heimskringla_ and other sagas, it is believed that women were the primary caregivers, and also gives one of the few examples of Viking wound treatment. Herbalism and the like aren't really recorded until the 13th and 14th centuries, after the Christianization of Scandinavia, so most of the work is influenced by European medical thought. This is why most of the detail in this chapter about ointments and draughts is left vague. I used alcohol as a pain treatment because, hey, they're Vikings, why not use more mead to cure something? Popular culture depiction of Vikings really does oversell a love of alcohol, so I figured I could use that to my advantage.


	20. Even Strong Minds Break

Days passed before Hiccup was able to even rise from his bench. Skili and Geirhilda were regular attendants to his sickbed, changing his dressings and slathering his back in a greasy ointment. In the evening Hedda would heft the boy bodily, a carefully choreographed dance to avoid aggravating his shoulder. As either Snortr, Skili, or Geirhilda replaced the soiled skins on Hiccup's bench, Hedda supported the boy over a bucket that served as their glorified chamber pot. Had Hiccup been in less pain, he would have been embarrassed to have his overseer play nursemaid, but the boy could barely hold himself up let alone attend to his daily toilet. His limbs shook with fatigue, pain, and the cold by the time he was finally lowered back onto his bench. With the new furs and blanket a comforting presence against his body, Hiccup would fall asleep for the brief intervals between treatment.

This routine continued for days as Hiccup slowly grew stronger and able to stay awake for longer periods. As his strength and dexterity returned, Hedda began delegating simple tasks to the boy. While milking goats would have to wait for the time being, Hiccup found himself able to assist in preparing food and keeping the fires going without straining his damaged shoulder too greatly. These tasks were not without their own exertion and Hiccup was almost glad for the bone clinging weariness they induced. Almost every night the boy found himself asleep as soon as he crawled back onto his bench, a sleep that was blessedly devoid of dreams or remembrances of fire, pain, and the burning stench of flesh.

The Spring Equinox approached quickly as the days of Hiccup's recovery wore on. Surprisingly, he yearned to return to goatherding in solitude on the hills. At least out there the days visibly changed and the worn paths through the slopes were familiar. Even if the house work was easier to complete in his state, it was nothing like the freedom of the open air and the wind in his hair. With a pang of loss, Hiccup thought of flying, remembered Toothless many miles away on an abandoned island. Had his dragon even survived the winter alone and injured as he was? He shook himself from the thought when his shoulder grated uncomfortably as the boy tried to hunch in on himself in sorrow. Hiccup knew that his shoulder was permanently marred and as he sat hunched on his bench gritting his teeth against the pain of movement, he wondered if he would ever be able to use it fully again. The skin that didn't feel dead stretched painfully across his depressingly slim shoulders. He suspected that he would always feel his shoulder grate uncomfortably as it was moved, but he thanked the gods that he could still move it. After all, he needed his shoulders to perform his tasks on the farm. Without his ability to work, what good was he?

"Hiccup?" the voice broke through Hiccup's hazy thoughts. He had gotten lost in his memories as his mind constantly focused on his injured shoulder and the slow recovery process he had already been forced to endure.

"Hiccup?" the voice sounded again and Hiccup looked up to see Alfhild standing in the doorway to the thrall's chamber. The wife of Sigfred and mistress of Stong was taller than most women Hiccup had encountered in this strange land, her back rigid and straight despite years' worth of toil and several children. The fire burning low in the pit threw her face into sharp angles and for a moment, Hiccup was reminded of a Valkyrie. He nodded respectfully in response .

"Will you not join us? We have already lit the fire to Ostara and brought out the eggs," Alhild's voice was kind, but there was a note of disapproval in it.

Hiccup rose without a sound and allowed Alfhild to steer him into the main room of the longhouse and over to the other thralls. Geirhilda and Skili carefully tugged Hiccup down onto one of the benches and pressed an egg stained bright red into his hands. Hiccup took the egg and turned it over in his hands. He stared into the spitting fire as Sigfred turned a flank of lamb on a rod above it. Laughter and chatter filled the air around Hiccup and rung oddly in his ears. He felt like there was cotton in his brain as Herbjorn tried to engage him in conversation. For what must have been hours, Hiccup sat silently and turned the egg over and over in his hands. His eyes slid over the people in the room, noting Alfhild's two daughters as one painted a rabbit on the stones lining the fire pit and the other danced with her husband under a budding tree bough that had been tied to a bench post. His eyes continued past them to watch each of the longhouse's occupants in turn. Hiccup only averted his gaze when he came full circle to see Steinrodr sitting off in the shadows at the opposite end of the room.

" - heard Master Sigfred, Hiccup!" Skili's voice broke through Hiccup's daze. He looked up quizzically at him, but the boy rattled on and Hiccup lost his train of thought again.

He was immensely grateful when Hedda pushed him off to his bench with the promise of early work. Settling back into his furs, Hiccup could hardly believe that the Spring Equinox had already come and that two seasons had passed since he had last seen Berk.

When Hedda finally hauled Hiccup off of his bench to work the next morning, the boy acquiesced with barely a sigh. The bandage on his burn was removed with gruff care to reveal shiny and irritated new skin growth. The blackened skin had been painfully scraped off and the remainder of the burn carefully treated. A white and thick scar was just beginning to poke out from the still tender skin.

"Ye are lucky that ye did nae suffer infection," Hedda mumbled as she appraised Hiccup's condition. With a satisfied nod, she handed Hiccup his boots and shepherd's crook before shooing him outside.

The cold bit at Hiccup's skin as he emerged into the light of a new dawn. For a few minutes, he stood and stared at the sky. How long had it been since he had seen the outside world? How much time had passed since everything had gone so horribly wrong?

A small, furry cannon buffeted his legs and forcefully yanked Hiccup from his innermost thoughts. Heiflund excitedly wagged her tail as Hiccup smiled slightly. With a small whistle, the dog fell into step beside the goatherd and the two traveled off into the hills together. There was work to be done, after all, Hiccup knew his place and he had to work if he wanted to stay alive.

Work, however, was hard to manage after his injury as it left Hiccup feeling weak and struggling to adapt. The hills were hard on his body as he scrambled over rocks and slid down scree laden slopes after goats. The texture of goat udders in his hands felt foreign as Hiccup's muscles struggled to remember the correct motions for milking his doe. Every small movement was a reminder of the brand on his shoulder and the reality that he was truly stuck in this place, forever.

"Hiccup?" Geirhilda was bent over a goat opposite from him, her dirty plait falling over one shoulder as her arms worked in perfect rhythm. The girl didn't pause in her work as she continued to speak, "tell me stories of Berk?"

Hiccup shook his head silently and bent his head back over his task, missing the concerned glance and heavy sigh directed at him. He couldn't afford to think about Berk. His former home would only add to the burden on his already scarred shoulders. Right now all that mattered was surviving, making it through another day. His numb mind was blank of any thought except the rhythmic motion of his hands and the sound of milk hitting the bottom of his bucket.

The other thralls begin to notice Hiccup's subdued nature as the days wore on. Concern for his well-being and the recovery of his shoulder has occupied their interactions with him since the incident, but now that he worked alongside them once more they saw his hollowness.

"Hiccup!" Skili called enthusiastically as Hiccup carried more peat into the main longhouse for the fires. The boy jumped, his shoulders tensing as he swung around defensively to face the other thrall. Surprise twisted Skili's face as he stared at the other boy's taut body before Hiccup dumped his armful of peat and hastily ran outside.

"Eat b'y!" Hedda barked sharply as Hiccup shredded his hunk of bread and goat cheese into smaller pieces. The boy automatically stuffed a few pieces into his mouth before dumping the rest on the stone in front of Snortr. He turned his back on his overseer and stumped into bed before she could force anymore food on him. Why should he bother eating if everything tasted wooden and nothing helped to regain his strength?

Two weeks had passed since Hiccup resumed work. Well over a month had passed since that horrible day in the smithy, by his admittedly faulty counting. As the daylight grew longer, the days started to bleed together and Hiccup stopped caring how much time had passed since he had last seen Berk, last lain in his carved bed, last felt black scales beneath his fingers. His body carried on without his consent, hands automatically milking goats, mouth whistling commands that sounded shrill to his own ears, and feet plodding on as his mind threw itself completely into survival. Nothing mattered anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Spring Equinox was the celebration of Ostara, the goddess of spring and marks the point of the year when the days start to lengthen. Traditional celebrations included lighting bonfires at dawn, painting eggs, decorating with flowers tree branches and rabbit motifs. This was a time to celebrate rebirth, renewal, and the coming of spring. I thought this was a good juxtaposition for Hiccup coming to the point where he truly loses hope in returning to Berk.
> 
> I've had a few requests for a chapter concerning Toothless. Rest assured, this chapter is in the outline and already half written, so there will definitely be an update concerning everyone's favourite dragon. I have that update slotted for chapter 24, but I might try to move it up a bit closer if people are really wanting to read that. Let me know if you would prefer it sooner than chapter 24 and I'll see what I can do!


	21. April Showers

The spring rains had deluged the farm for nearly two weeks. Hiccup’s boot was hopelessly waterlogged and his foot covered in sores from the constant damp. For once in his short life, the boy was grateful that he didn’t have two feet. For days on end, everyone in the longhouse coughed and sniffled against the cold and wet. And then Herbjorn’s cough turned into something more.

Hiccup and Geirhilda were just rising to milk the goats when they caught the elderly man’s tossing and turning in the low glow of dying embers. At first, Hiccup passed it off as restless sleep, but then the older man coughed.

“Herbjorn?” Geirhilda whispered in alarm at the wet, rattling sounds that were dragged from the man’s lungs. She crossed over to his bench quickly with Hiccup on her heels. It was almost impossible to see much more than silhouettes and shadows in the low light, but Hiccup could hear Herbjorn’s labored breathing before they even reached his bench.

Geirhilda reached out a slim hand to rest on the wrinkled forehead of the man. She drew in a sharp breath as Herbjorn’s next bout of coughing dislodged her hand.

“Feverish,” she confirmed to Hiccup, wiping her hand on her under dress. “I’ll wake Hedda, you go care for the goats.”

Hiccup milked the goats alone that morning, shoulder twinging against the repetitive motion. When Geirhildr had not joined him by the end of the early morning, he set aside his pails of milk, whistled to Heiflund and took off for the hills with his herd. Throughout the day, Hiccup’s mind kept drifting from the task at hand to the gloom of the thralls’ benches. Herbjorn’s worn and weathered face occupied the back of his mind as he kept his wandering goats in check. The old man had sounded so sick that morning and the few glimpses he caught of his face in the renewed firelight had shown Herbjorn looking utterly spent, recognition absent from his eyes. Death wasn’t an unfamiliar thing to Hiccup. Berk had been at war with the dragons for longer than he could remember. And it had only been since Toothless and the addition of the dragon riding school that the marriages and births had surpassed the deaths. It should not surprise him that death had come to visit, even in this far away land.  
Heiflund’s sharp bark rang out through the slopes. Hiccup startled out of his thoughts and whirled around, eyes wide and searching for the source of the danger. However, all his panicked searching could turn up was his loyal dog, tail thumping in the mud.

“Don’t scare me like that!” Hiccup snapped. His hand clutched at his chest to calm his pounding heart as he took a steadying breath.

Heiflund whined and crept up to her master, snout nudging gently at the calloused hand clenched in a fist. Slowly, the tension bled out of the small viking and his hand opened to stroke the comforting ears of his dog. “It’s okay, girl. I’m fine. And I’m sorry for snapping at you. Now, let’s get these guys circled up for dinner.”

With a piercing whistle, Hiccup directed Heiflund up onto the slopes. The dog took off at a run and swept wide to contain the first few goats just beginning to wander further up the slope. Hiccup struggled up the rise behind her, whistling commands between breaths and watching in satisfaction as the group of goats began tightening and turning for home. Carefully, he scampered down the other side of the slope to follow his herd. His crook was planted firmly into the soft earth to anchor him as he scrambled over rocks and ankle-clinging scrub. He breathed a sigh of relief when he and his herd descended from the slopes and into the small valley where the farm lay.

Hiccup spent the evening meal that night huddled in the back of the main room, bowl of mutton stew cradled in his lap. The warmth of the fire and the hot soup in his belly did wonders for his shivering frame. The wetness that had clung to his clothes and boot was still there, but at least the cold had been chased away.  
“You should finish that,” Snortr’s low and quiet voice admonished from beside him.

Hiccup glanced over at the young man, hands tightening reflexively around his bowl. He shrugged as best he could with one shoulder and shoveled another spoonful into his mouth.

“We just got you back to health.” Snortr continued, “and we don’t need you going the same way as Herbjorn just yet.”

Both boys looked towards the low light emanating from the thrall’s back chamber. Herbjorn’s coughs could barely be heard over the din of the evening meal, but they both knew that the coughing was there and that it was worsening.

A few minutes passed before Hiccup gave up on his meal. “You finish it,” he shoved the bowl of soup towards Snortr, “I’m not that hungry and you need it more.”

And then he ducked off of the bench and hurried for their room before the other boy could protest. Hiccup didn’t sleep much that night, tossing and turning in time to Herbjorn’s congested coughs.  
The next two days passed in a wet and miserable blur. Though the rain had ceased to fall, clouds still obscured the sun and held back it’s warmth from the land below. Mud clung to everything in a thick and slimy layer. Herbjorn’s condition continued to worsen.

“He’s not getting better,” Skili whispered on the third day as the thralls sat around their fire, gathering together before bed.

Hedda turned her head away from the young boy, her face stoney and her eyes downcast. Snortr didn’t look up from the poker he was working into the embers of the fire, but his hand shook around the end of the stick. It was Geirhilda who replied, “I’m not sure how much longer he will linger.”

The woman brushed the hair escaping from the dirty plait out of her face and fixed Skili with a piercing look, “we should prepare to send him to Hel.”

Snortr’s poker snapped audibly in the silence that followed. He looked at the wood shard in his hand before throwing it into the fire in a small cloud of sparks. Wordlessly, he stood and stalked to his bench. Hedda rose and followed a moment later.

The fire crackled in the silence, interrupted only by Herbjorn’s coughing. Hiccup watched it until his eyes stung and light spots danced in his vision. He caught Skili’s face twisted in sadness out of the corner of his eye. The boy gave him a tight smile before sighing and unfolding his creaking joints to stand. Hiccup squeezed Skili’s shoulder for a moment in solidarity before turning to his own bench. He fell asleep to the sound of the sparking fire, soft crying, and the wheeze of a dying man.

Fire. All around him, flames jumped and wavered. His vision filled with red hot iron and his shoulder ignited in pain. The heat was suffocating, blistering his lungs as he fought to draw breath. Every minute was a struggle to keep from being consumed by the burning. Hiccup startled awake, gasping for breath and staring at the dirt wall of his bench. He slowly set up, laboring to catch his breath. He wasn’t in the workshop. He was on his bench. His shoulder twinged, but no longer hurt. It was all just a dream. 

The sound of horrible coughing and wheezing broke through Hiccup’s subsiding terror and he looked across the room to see Hedda propping up Herbjorn as the old man struggled to expel something dark from his lungs. Hiccup silently watched them until Herbjorn’s fit was over. With fear and uncertainty still clinging to his heart, the boy laid back down and went to sleep.

Snortr shook him awake the next morning and Hiccup rose to find Alfhild and Sigfred crowded around Herbjorn’s bench. Hiccup looked up at the older boy next to him, questioning clear in his face.  
Snortr nodded, “he is gone.”

Hiccup turned away for a moment and locked eyes with Skili on the bench over from him. The younger boy was crying softly, rocking back and forth against Geirhilda. The thrall girl turned glistening eyes to Hiccup before turning back to pat Skili’s shoulder.

Hiccup milked the goats alone again. Silence seemed to hang heavily over the farm, even as animal noises sounded all around. At the direction of Hedda, Hiccup, Snortr, and Skili finished up the morning tasks. They said little to each other and worked with an efficiency that only grief could bring.

Mid-morning approached when they returned to their room in search of the overseer. Inside, they found the women quietly moving around with supplies of greens and buckets of water. Hedda and Geirhilda had laid Herbjorn out on an old, undyed piece of linen on the floor. They carefully surrounded him with the detritus of the forest and the wildflowers that grew in abundance around the farm before beginning to wash his body and clean his hair. Alfhild joined them in the preparations, carefully moving about the thrall women as she assisted in dressing Herbjorn in his better tunic. When the body had been mostly cleaned and dressed, Alfhild removed one of the strands of beads she wore suspended from two tortoise brooches on her chest and laid it about Herbjorn’s neck in place of a collar. Hedda looked surprised at the gesture but said nothing. Instead, she turned and nodded meaningfully to Snortr.

“Come,” Snortr said after a moment of silence. “We must prepare the burial.”

The larger boy led Hiccip and Skili out near the perimeter fence of the farm where several cairns of stone already stood. With a shovel in hand, Hiccup began digging at the direction of Snortr. The three worked in silence, saying nothing to disturb the noise of the wind or the sod as it was removed from the ground and thrown over their shoulders. Finally they had dug a passable grave. Snortr helped the two young boys climb out of the hole in the ground and together they sat on the perimeter fence to take a day meal. A wineskin was passed around and they absently nibbled at bread and goat cheese. Their bodies cried for the sustenance after their hard work, but the food tasted ashen and the mead did little to wash it down.

Soon, Snortr nudged Hiccup to see Master Sigfred and Steinrodr approaching in the distance. Between them they bore a plank with Herbjorn’s linen wrapped body upon it. The rest of the family trailed behind, singing softly as they went.

Snortr stood to receive the body as the household grew nearer. Steinrodr moved aside and Hedda came up to whisper a small prayer. Geirhilda sang quietly behind her, Skili quickly joining her in song as the girl offered a comforting arm to him. The small display was depressingly short and then Master Sigfred and Snortr were lowering the linen wrapped body into the grave. Master Sigfred shoveled the first load of dirt onto the body before letting Hiccup, Skili, and Snortr fill in the rest. The three made short work of the grave and then stood back as Hedda built a small cairn at the head, stones stacked expertly to knee height. Alfhild came forward next, arranging a small offering of food on the grave as a memorial feast.

The household remained by the grave for a short while longer before turning and striking off for the longhouse. Hiccup could smell roasting meat on the wind and knew that the evening meal was already being prepared. For at least today, they would eat and drink to the fallen. He, Snortr, and Hedda lingered the longest before finally returning. The family passed the evening meal in the most raucous a celebration of life they could muster. Hiccup could not help but dwell on the idea that all of them in this place were mortal and that when tomorrow came, it could take one of them to Hel just as easily. He sat up until the fire burned to embers, sipping mead and trying to think of nothing amidst the din of voices. Dreams evaded him that night.

It rained again the next day, a fine spray that didn’t let up until well into the evening. Hiccup spent the day miserably wet and shivering in the chill of the constant breeze. The work day passed in a blur as his mind wandered dully into the clouds. Even as the boy stumbled over the rocky ground, Hiccup remained blissfully numb. He coasted on autopilot; his muscle memory carrying his body through milking the goats and herding them into the mountains. And when the evening meal was finally over that night, the weary viking sank into his bench gratefully. The sound of Skili’s gentle cries filled his mind in place of thought as the boy drifted in and out of sleep. Another day had passed and Hiccup could hardly remember it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for disappearing for a long while. I'm still working on this story and am determined to make it to the end. 
> 
> Some notes on Viking burials: we are generally more accustomed to pyre or ship cremations as a proper burial within viking culture. After all, cremation was the burial used for Stoick. This practice is probably most graphically depicted by Ahmad ibn Fahlad who recorded the burial rituals of a viking chieftain who passed away on the Eastern trading route in the 10th century. The account is more in line with what the depiction of viking funerals has been in the 19th-20th centuries. Also in this account, one thrall woman volunteered to be burned alongside her master in his longship to serve him in the afterlife. This is important to note because it seems that thralls were often used as service even in death and some were slaughtered and buried/burned alongside their masters as an aid for the afterlife.  
> More on burials vs. cremation: Snorri Stulurson writes on the custom of cremation and the introduction of burial in the Saga of the Ynglings. Here is where the other stereotypical viking burial comes into play: the burial mound. These types of burials were often used for the wealthy and high status and can be seen in very famous pieces of literature such as Beowulf. Some vikings were buried in graves that had stones placed around it in the outline of a ship. One of my favorite examples of this is the Lindholm Hoje burial grounds. With these prominent examples of burials mentioned, I should say that is likely that the graves of most thralls were no more than a hole in the ground. From archaeological excavations at Grimska and Flakstad, it is shown that thralls were mistreated in burials and that their placement was often careless in relation to vikings of a higher social standing. That said, treating the bodies of the departed with respect and holding a memorial fest, however small it may be, was still in practice as some vikings believed this would prevent the dead from haunting them as well as securing the dead’s service to them.
> 
> The glass bead string given to Herbjorn is unusual given that most thralls were not buried with grave goods. However, some beads were found in the graves of Kaupang (which is in the region where I’ve set this story) so I wanted to include them as both an allusion to continued service in the afterlife with the replacing of one collar for another and also as a testament to the relative kindness of Sigfred and Alfhild.


	22. The Coming Storm

The warm green of late spring had by now completely chased away the hues of black, white, and bracken brown that clung depressingly to the hillsides in the winter months. Hiccup supposed he was grateful for the change in scenery and to be back on his own one-and-a-half legs, but a lingering sense of foreboding and wariness held his mind captive. 

Staggering around the goats’ normal grazing grounds, the boy tried his best to focus on where his legs were going instead of where his mind wanted to go. Goats shifted around below him. Their bleating was almost a comfort to Hiccup’s frazzled nerves, blocking out the echoing sounds of rocks falling in the distance and the whistling wind. The earth shifted wetly underfoot as the boy continued his climb up to a better vantage point. 

_Voff-voff_ , a deep bark echoed shortly through the hills. Hiccup jumped at the unexpected sound, an arm raised to protect his head as he whirled to find the source. Heiflund sat on the ground in front of him. Her tail thumped the muddy earth and she whined softly at her human. The breath Hiccup had been unconsciously holding left him all at once, leaving his mind reeling and his lungs struggling to remember how to function. Gasping for breath, the boy sunk down on his haunches. Heiflund slunk towards him, belly nearly dragging the ground as she tried to appear non-threatening. She whined piteously at her human. When Hiccup did nothing to bat her away, the dog crept all the way up to him and dropped her head into his lap. 

Hiccup reached out to scrub her ears. His hand shook and his fingers felt numb and uncooperative, but the warmth of Heiflund’s fur assured him that he could still feel. Dog and master stayed crouched on the ground for countless minutes as Hiccup fought for the control of his own body. Finally, with a great shudder, the small viking pieced himself back together. “It’s okay, girl. I’m okay,” he reassured his faithful dog as they climbed back to their feet. 

Hiccup surveyed his herd. Most of the goats had been content to stay in the same area while he had freaked out, but a few were wandering over the hills. With a sharp whistle, Hiccup directed Heiflund out to wrangle everything back in order. “Let’s go! We have a job to do if we want to eat,” he yelled after his dog when she kept looking back at him for reassurance. Heiflund barked once in response and bounded after her charges. 

Thanking his luck and whatever god was looking after him, Hiccup managed to make it back to the sod longhouse with all his goats. As Heiflund was herding the last of the stragglers into their pin, the sound of a raised voice met his ears. Hiccup took a step back, shoulders tensed against the sore stiffness of his scar and body ready to spring into action. 

Steinrodr stumbled around the corner of the barn. The large man grumbled loudly to himself as he weaved his way back to the longhouse. One of his gnarled hands clutched a small, linen covered earthenware pot and the other held tight to the tail of a red fox. The animal’s carcass swung with the movement of the man, dripping blood over the muddy ground. 

“Sigfred!” Steinrodr yelled towards the house. He bypassed the back entrance to slap the dead fox onto a workbench. “Sigfred!”

When the master of the house did not immediately answer his brother’s beckoning, Steinrodr turned his attention to Hiccup. “What’re you staring at?” the man bellowed at the small teen.

Hiccup shook his head frantically, reaching out to steady himself on the wooden gate. He couldn’t trust his voice to speak and instead launched himself towards the back entrance. The boy barely managed to duck into the doorway before the earthenware pot sailed across the yard, shattering into pieces on the side of the peat stores just behind him. 

Without looking back, Hiccup fled pell mell through the longhouse and to his room. Geirhilda looked up in surprise as the boy tripped into the room. “Hiccup? What’s wrong?” she asked. 

The small viking waved his arms vaguely before turning and falling onto his bench. The other thrall stood in alarm and slowly approached Hiccup, one arm held out in front of her in a placating gesture. 

“Gerh’lda!” the sharp cry cut off the thrall’s advance. With blue eyes wide beneath her dirty plait, she fled the room. Hedda appeared a moment later, looking sternly down at Hiccup. 

“Ye must join meal,” she told him gruffly. Hiccup knew where this lecture was going and tuned out the rest of the overseer's words until Hedda gave up communication and instead manhandled him to the fire for dinner. The course bread and smoked meat that was forced into his hands took too much effort to chew and swallow. Hiccup just stared at his food until the overseer sighed heavily and replaced it with wool carders. With something his hands could do almost mindlessly, Hiccup worked through dinner, ignoring the boisterous household around him and Skili’s increasingly desperate attempts to get him to talk. After what seemed like hours, the boy was released from his torture and allowed to retire. He tossed and turned long into the night. 

Hiccup awoke at his usual time the next morning, saying nothing to Geirhilda as the two dressed in the still dawn hours. The goats sounded unusually loud to the small viking’s ears and he focused on their clamor to drown out Geirhilda’s soft singing.

As the rest of the farm started about their day, raised voices could be heard from the main firepit. The argument steadily increased in intensity until it echoed from every corner of the longhouse, cutting over Geirhilda’s lilting tune and the usual sounds of day labor. The thrall stuttered into startled silence. 

“You need to get ahold of yourself,” Sigfred’s stern rebuke was clearly audible. “And stop inviting the displeasure of the gods.”

Steinrodr’s low growl rumbled through their space, “if the gods feel displeasure, it is not my head that it will fall on.”

“You have let anger cloud your judgment,” Sigfred hissed. The sound of something heavy hitting one of the benches in the main longhouse punctuated the man’s statement. 

Hiccup ducked behind his goat at the noise, shaking hands tugging too harshly on the doe’s udder. He earned a sharp kick for the rough treatment, but the boy couldn’t even feel the blow as numbness and adrenaline coursed through his system. That voice, filled with anger and promising pain; he had to get away from that voice. Geirhilda looked up sharply at his small whimper of distress. Her eyes narrowed in an angry grimace. 

Silence fell over the longhouse. Hiccup could hear the honking of geese and the whispered conversation between Alfhild and the other women as they silently exited through the main entrance. Heavy breathing filled the space after the women’s departure, but the boy wasn’t sure if it came from him or one of the other men. 

“It disrespected me,” Steinrodr argued. His tone was low and dangerous, spat out between clenched teeth. 

“And you answered with tenfold severity,” Sigfred immediately countered the argument. “You cannot use the boy as an excuse for your actions. You and you alone have brought displeasure onto this household.”

“No!” the shout echoed through the longhouse. Something crashed in the main room. 

Hiccup gave up an pretense of bravery and abandoned his hiding spot. Whistling for Heiflund as he went, the boy grabbed wildly for his crook and vest, only managing to cram his arms into the correct holes with Geirhilda’s help. Together, the two thralls managed to get the buckets put away and the pin open in record time. Goats streamed out for the hills, directed by an over-exuberant Heiflund and an alarmingly insistent Geirhilda. 

When Hiccup finally slipped away after his dog, the eyes on his back were seething pits of rage. He didn’t look behind him to face the man who stood outside of the longhouse. The boy already knew who it was and what he wanted. A storm was coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse the hastily written chapter, I’ve been struggling to get it down on paper for a while now. Several months ago I managed to write the chapter before this and the next three chapters after it over the course of a weekend. I was so excited for where the story was going and to finally connect it with the ending that was actually the first thing I wrote in this whole endeavor, but I couldn’t figure out how to connect everything together. So I give you these 1400 words of bull shittery. It was written simply to fill the space between the two sections I’ve been working on and to set up the events of the next few chapters. 
> 
> Next update: Steinrodr confronts Hiccup (the chapter after next will be an update on Toothless)


	23. A Boiling Point

Much like the mood hanging oppressively over the farm, the morning was choked in a misty fog and the sky held an angry grey that promised violent rain. Hiccup pulled his damp vest around his thin torso, trying desperately to keep the warmth in. Even with the milder temperatures of spring and nearly seven hours of sunlight during the day, the winds were chilly in the hills and tried their best to sap the warmth from Hiccup’s frail frame. 

The teen found a nice perch on a mostly-dry stone halfway up one of the slopes that afforded him a good view of his flock and settled in for another long day. The goats fanned out below him as they grazed contentedly on the spring green grass. Heiflund prowled about, keeping the herd from spreading out too wide. 

For an indeterminate amount of time, Hiccup sat with a watchful gaze of his goats, whistling shrill commands to his dog. The sun finally crept over the hills, lighting up the edges of the grey storm clouds. The teen fervently wished that those clouds would part long enough for the sun to shine through to the hills. It had been too long since he had been able to bask in its warmth. 

_Voff_! The booming warning bark from Heiflund echoed through the hills. Hiccup snapped around to see what was going on, body taught to spring into action if need be. A great bulk of a man was charging up the hill at Hiccup, arms held out to grab him. The figure of Steinrodr was unmistakable, even in the gloom of a looming storm. And there was murder in his eyes. 

With a cry of alarm, Hiccup threw himself off of his boulder. He dodged a wide swipe from the enraged man and scrambled under his grasping hands. Adrenaline bumped through his veins as he turned on his one foot to flee down the slope. Out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup caught the sight of Heiflund charging in, belly low to the ground before she sprang up at Steinrodr and bit into his arm. 

The man yelled in pain. He tried in vain to wrench his arm from the dog’s grasp, but Heiflund held fast, teeth sunk deep into his flesh as she tried to tug the viking away from her master. Dog and man crashed into the ground with a wet thud. 

Hiccup’s senses screamed at him to run away while he had the chance, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon his faithful companion. Steinrodr’s flailing hand managed to find a rock on the sodden ground and he raised it above his head. That was all it took to kick the teen into action. 

“No!” Hiccup screamed, rushing at where the dog and man struggled in the mud. But he was too late to stop the inevitable. Steinrodr slammed the rock down onto the dog’s snout and Heiflund released his arm with a pained whimper. She pawed at her snout for a minute before growling helplessly and launching herself at the man again, a flying bundle of teeth, fur, mud, and blood. 

Steinrodr was ready for her this time. He caught the dog mid leap, struggling for a minute against her scrabbling paws and snapping jaw before getting a better grip on her. 

“Let her go!” Hiccup yelled as he reached the two. He tugged at one of Steinrodr’s meaty arms, pulling in the hope of saving his dog. 

With a loud cry, the man drew himself upright and threw the thrashing dog down the slope. Heiflund howled in distress as she tumbled down, hitting rocks and brush on her way. The dog rolled to a stop at the bottom of the slope with a final cry and didn’t rise. 

Hiccup screamed, a guttural and primal sound that couldn’t be put to words. Anger so strong that it caused his vision to waver rose within him and he launched himself at the larger man, pummeling, biting, kicking, and scratching everything he could reach. 

Steinrodr growled in pain and annoyance. He back-pedaled at the force of Hiccup’s onslaught, arms raised to protect himself. Pure rage fueled Hiccup’s body until a backhand broke through his frantic struggles and sent him crashing to the ground. Spitting mud and blood from his mouth, the teen scrambled up the slope on all fours, churned earth spraying in his wake. A meaty hand grabbed his flesh leg in a vice grip and started hauling him in. Hiccup clawed the ground as he was pulled back, ripping up great handfuls of moss and grass in a desperate attempt to get away. A forceful tug flipped him over and Hiccup lashed out with his prosthesis, catching his assailant in the sternum. Stenirodr howled in pain and launched himself at the bucking teen, throwing a clenched fist into his temple. 

Hiccup’s head snapped to the side at the force of the blow. He tried to kick out again, but a heavy weight pinned them into the mud. Bucking against the bulk that held him down, the boy did his best to fend off the blows. His arms screamed in pain from trying to stop Steinrodr’s fists from reaching his face and he choked on the blood pouring from his surely broken nose. Two large hands seized his collar and lifted his torso off of the ground before slamming him down. The breath was driven from Hiccup’s lungs in a helpless sputter. He was slammed into the ground once, twice, three times more before his arms fell limp by his side and his body slumped boneless in the grip of the man intent on murdering him.

A scream tore through the hillside before Steinrodr pitched forward and his bulk crashed down onto Hiccup. The boy’s ringing head was pinned to the ground, one cheek mashed into the soft earth and the other pressed against the rough weave of a tunic. He drew a shuddering breath through split lips, wincing at the pain ringing throughout his body and the pressure constricting his breathing. His stomach protested at the stench of the man on top of him, but Hiccup managed to swallow back the bile. One hand came up to weakly push at the weight pinning him to the ground.

Suddenly, two hands seized Steinrodr’s shoulder and heaved. It took two tries before the man was rolled off of him and Hiccup could finally draw a full breath. He hacked and gasped, sputtering on the mud and blood coating his face. Finally, the boy looked up to meet his savior. 

Hedda loomed over him, blood spattered on her face. She held out a hand to Hiccup, and the young viking took it on instinct. Nausea roiled in his gut and his head violently protested his attempts to sit up as Hiccup was levered upright. Finally, and only thanks to Hedda’s steadying hand between his shoulder blades, the boy managed to gain his feet. Everything hurt and adrenaline still throbbed through his veins like a raging fire. “Wha’?” was all Hiccup managed to squeak out when he opened his mouth to speak.

The overseer just shook her head in response, eyes downcast. She bent down to wipe a blood covered hand on the disturbed earth scattered all around them. 

The gears in Hiccup’s sore head started clicking into motion as he watched the woman. Why was she covered in blood? It hadn’t come from him The teen look to his other side to see Steinrodr’s mass splayed out in the mud. A blood covered rock lay next to him. Hiccup’s eyes traveled up to the face that just moments before had snarled angrily at him. And, oh gods, his skull was concave. Hedda had literally bashed his head in. 

His screaming head, spinning senses, and the dizzying reality of this situation seemed to hit the boy all at once. Almost as if he had been punched in the gut, Hiccup bent over, arms clenched around his stomach, and retched up his money meal of bland oats. Vomit splattered against his trouser leg and Steinrodr’s corpse, steaming in the crisp spring air. 

“Come,” Hedda hauled him upright and pulled him away from the body, ignoring the boy’s stumbles and dry heaving. 

Hiccup tried to fight off her hands, not sure if he was scared, angry, or in pain. He finally managed to get his feet under him and stop heaving. “No!” he yelled louder than he meant. 

“Come,” Hedda repeated. “Ve must leave.”

Hiccup was too weak to fight back as she dragged his arm over her shoulder and started to hobble down the mountain. The light mist that had been falling all morning turned into a steady rain. 

When they drew closer to the bottom of the slope, Hiccup caught sight of a mud covered bundle of tan fur. With a cry, the boy tore himself from the overseer’s grasp and fell to his knees beside his dog. Hiccup buried both of his hands in the sodden fur. Heiflund didn’t stir. 

“No,” Hiccup choked on a painful sob. “You have to get up, Heif, we have to go.”

The dog didn’t respond to her master’s desperate pleas or the sharp whistle that followed. “Wake up,” Hiccup cried. He shook the smaller body back and forth in the mud. 

“‘Iccup,” Hedda’s use of his given name finally broke through to the inconsolable boy. “Ve must go.”

Hiccup shook his head frantically, crying out at the pain the movement brought. He fought to stay at his dog’s side, jerking out of Hedd’s arms to remain kneeling next to Heiflund. Finally, the overseer swore lowly, seized him under both arms, and bodily hauled him away. “There’s nothing ve can do fer it,” the woman tried to reason with him. 

With one last strangled whistle, Hiccup allowed himself to be pulled away. He was too numb and injured to keep fighting, but he cried bitterly as Hedda pulled him through the endless rising and falling terrain of the fog choked hills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on dogs: I’ve based Heiflund on the Norwegian Buhund. This breed is at least as old as the 10th century and the skeletons of a dog breed very similar to this one was found at the Gokstad excavation. Dogs were expected to continue their duties in Valhalla and as such accompanied their masters even in death, which explains their presence at gravesites and as fighting companions depicted in art and literature. The Buhund was used primarily as a sheep herd dog and farm guard. The American Kennel Club even gives them the epithet “The Dog of the Vikings.” They are energetic, reliable, and well suited to the cold northern climates. 
> 
> I was honestly torn between four different dog breeds at first: the Pyrenean Mountain Dog, the icelandic Sheepdog, the Shetland Sheepdog, and the Norwegian Buhund. The Pyrenean Mountain Dog (Great Pyrenees) is a herd protector that works primarily with sheep and goats and is well suited to the snowy mountain, but it originated and was used farther south in France and Spain. Plus, they are more guard dogs than they are herders. The Icelandic Sheepdog was also used by Vikings as herders, but I decided they were more associated with Iceland (go figure) and the Buhund fit the setting in Norway. The Shetland Sheepdog almoooossssttt was my choice, partially because they look like Collies and partially because they’re herd dogs from the Scottish islands, Unfortunately, the Shetland Sheepdog would be a better fit for Berk instead of where Hiccup finds himself in Norway. Oh well.
> 
> I put way too much thought into dog breeds guys. Way too much. And yes, I’m going to hell for doing this to a dog.


End file.
